This article appeared in the Detroit News. Read more here.
Michigan hasn’t dealt with a pandemic in more than a century. Now, history repeats itself as Michiganians must constantly wash hands, avoid close contact with others and remain indoors amid COVID-19.
Cases of the novel coronavirus continue to rise in Michigan, and there is an eerie similarity with how the city of Detroit handled its last major outbreak.
In 1918, Michigan was hit with the Spanish flu pandemic, which lasted from January 1918 to December 1920. In Detroit, more than 1,500 residents died from its affects and over 18,000 cases were reported, The Detroit News reported.
Also referred to as “the 1918 flu pandemic” or “the grip,” the virus was first detected in Michigan around Sept. 20, 1918, just months before the end of World War I, at the U.S. Naval Training Station at Ford Motor Co.’s River Rouge Plant and Shipyard in Dearborn.
Symptoms were discovered among five sailors, and just a couple days later the number of people showing signs of the deadly virus had risen to 107.
Detroiters had been warned on Sept. 18 by Health Commissioner Dr. James Woffendale Inches that the influenza may soon reach the city’s downtown area.
“Cases of the virulent type of influenza are increasing rapidly in the city, according to Dr. Inches, who is considering closing the theaters as a precautionary measure against the spreading of the disease,” The Detroit News said in a report in October 1918.
“On Sept. 22, the Spanish flu made its first appearance in Detroit as reports from Eastern points showed the malady virtually unchecked,” The Detroit News reported. Nineteen people died in Boston and five in Newport, R.I. Two officers and 16 privates were victims at Camp Davens, Mass.
Nearly 2,000 sailors at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station were infected and the disease appeared in the Army training unit at Lewis Technical Institute in Chicago.
Roughly two weeks later, Detroit’s first case of the virus was reported by the attending physician of the Department of Health, and the first death took place the first week of October. On Oct. 2, four Michigan soldiers died from Spanish flu.
To avoid the flu’s spread, many of the same precautions being implemented today were put in place back then. Among them was the closing of non-essential businesses and places where large groups gathered.
“The only way to stop the spread of Spanish influenza is to close churches, schools, theaters and public institutions in every community where the epidemic has developed,” said U.S. Surgeon General Rupert Blue.
Residents were also encouraged to practice good hygiene, such as thoroughly washing hands after being out in public, using disinfectants to clean common areas, quarantining when thought necessary, and to self-isolate.