PC: Earlier End to WWI = Curbed Spanish Flu

[John Fredrick Parker]

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?

 

[Analytical Engine]

It might have spread more slowly than IOTL, but I could still see it spreading.

The world was highly connected by this point. Plague spread to Australia and San Francisco from China in the early years of the 20th century. Cholera spread through much of the world during the first two decades of the 20th century.

Flu is more contagious than the plague. Regardless of where it actually started, it could still spread.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

Respectfully @Analytical Engine, you seem to be only taking into account the war’s effect on moving people (eg troops) around, but not on how the total public health responses are affected. Yes, the world was still interconnected, similar to how it is today, but on top of that it was also a world in thrall to a Total War that seriously screwed with how nations were able to respond to said spread.

 

[Analytical Engine]

Respectfully @Analytical Engine, you seem to be only taking into account the war’s effect on moving people (eg troops) around, but not on how the total public health responses are affected. Yes, the world was still interconnected, similar to how it is today, but on top of that it was also a world in thrall to a Total War that seriously screwed with how nations were able to respond to said spread.

The available methods of treatment would be the same. The only difference would be having more resources available to treat the infected.

The increased quality of treatment due to more available doctors and nurses may improve the chance of survival in some places. However, large numbers of people are still malnourished (and thus will have a compromised immune system) during this period - that won't really change if the war ends sooner.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

The available methods of treatment would be the same. The only difference would be having more resources available to treat the infected. The increased quality of treatment due to more available doctors and nurses may improve the chance of survival in some places.

Well, depending on what the Influenza actually was, that would be a pretty big change in itself, wouldn't it? If the theory that the Spanish Flu was the work of a fairly unique Super-virus happened to be the case, then sure, more available treatment wouldn't make much difference; but AIUI, that theory isn't very popular among experts, who are fairly sure that this epidemic was a manifestation of infections that modern medicine of the time was at least somewhat familiar with.

Actually, even this is just really looking into yet one more aspect of responsiveness -- the availability of medical staff and institutions to look after the civilian populations -- without getting into the other kinds of responses I was talking about. More effective quarantining and canceling public gatherings to be sure, but also people at the individual level, seeing the concerns of the disease in the news, now having more of a desire to not be in crowded places. Which actually brings me to another change of a shorter war -- labor unions.

OTL, government officials and others in power were prioritizing the war effort, and so exerted pressure or outright suppressed upon labor leaders to make sure that workers showed up at the factories, come hell or high water; but with labor now less suppressed (due to the war being shorter) and no such external pressure (due to it being over), on top of being better informed (due to no press censorship of the spread of the disease), unions are now in a better position to make demands which attempt to protect the health of their members. Whether these demands result in compromises with more conciliatory business and political leaders (well, conciliatory compared to OTL, which is not difficult), or in a series of strikes that put end up giving masses of workers de facto vacation time (for lack of a better term, clunky and inaccurate as it is), either of which would further alleviate the destructiveness of the influenza.

However, large numbers of people are still malnourished (and thus will have a compromised immune system) during this period - that won't really change if the war ends sooner.

Now the first part of this is also a very good point; among other things, the War had significantly added to the malnourishment of large swaths of the population of Europe, the US, et el. But as to the latter, I have to wonder, if the war ended by August of 1917, that would leave a full year before OTL saw the start of the absolutely devastating second wave; would that really not be enough time to get the relevant richer nations back to their pre-war diets?

The more I look at this, the more I can't help but think the war is being downplayed as the factor that make the Spanish Flu the mass casualty, history changing epidemic it was.

 

[Analytical Engine]

They tried cancelling public gatherings in OTL. Either the civic authorities refused, or the local papers basically said "everything is fine".

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

They tried cancelling public gatherings in OTL. Either the civic authorities refused, or the local papers basically said "everything is fine".

Exactly; which the civic authorities and local papers did because "We're at WAR dammit! Think of the morale...". There was a lot of pressure to not let anything, anything get in the way of making sure that American and Allied troops had the materials and men they needed to defeat the Germans. Which is why I'm fairly convinced that if the war was already over by this point, said civic leaders would respond far, far more sanely than they did OTL.

 

[Analytical Engine]

You've given me a lot to think about here. One, because I've been watching the Extra Credits series on the 1918 Flu epidemic, and second...totally not because I'm writing a TL at the moment where a flu epidemic will appear.

Not at all...