Some interesting parallels have been drawn between the 1918 "Spanish Flu" pandemic and the current COVID-19 emergency, in an article written by Theodore Decker in Sunday's- The Columbus Dispatch.
Decker highlights the miscalculations made by officials at Chillicothe's Camp Sherman Army Camp and leaders in the City of Columbus.
Decker writes that on October 5th of 1918, the commanding officer of Camp Sherman advised Ohio Governor James M. Cox that the camp had turned the corner on an illness that had claimed 140 lives there. Army commander Col. T.R. Rivers continued by saying “While, no doubt, there will be more deaths, the disease is waning and we believe we have it checked.”
As it turned out, that was a huge underestimation. In the seven days after the camp’s commanding officer had declared the battle close to being won, 731 more soldiers perished.
When it was finally over, at least 1,100 soldiers died at Camp Sherman and another one thousand people died in Columbus.
Decker wrote that; "The unfolding of the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak, which claimed 675,000 lives in the United States, shows that specific actions — or more often a failure to act —inadvertently aids viral adversaries. Hesitation, denial and impatience cost lives."
For more, go to Sunday's article in The Columbus Dispatch: CLICK HERE FOR STORY LINK....