John Fredrick Parker
Donor
Ok, so this was kind of brought up a few years ago, but I had some specific thoughts - even putting aside the role of shipping troops around had in spreading the disease OTL, we should also remember the role that the affected countries commitment to the ongoing Total War also seriously hindered their ability to respond appropriately to the outbreak; not only were medical experts constantly overruled in their efforts to quarantine the epidemic, but the censoring of press coverage of the crisis, meant to maintain wartime morale on the homefront, served only to confusion and panic, which most certainly hindered adaptation at even the most localized levels.
But what do you guys think? Would an earlier end to the Great War - say in 1917 - have made a serious difference to how the influenza spread and was responded to? And would these changes have fundamentally changed the impact of the disease? Could the disease have been curbed to the point of no longer raising to the level of a historically important global (or even national) epidemic? And if so, how does this, in itself, change the course of history?
But what do you guys think? Would an earlier end to the Great War - say in 1917 - have made a serious difference to how the influenza spread and was responded to? And would these changes have fundamentally changed the impact of the disease? Could the disease have been curbed to the point of no longer raising to the level of a historically important global (or even national) epidemic? And if so, how does this, in itself, change the course of history?