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Look Back 250 • Quarantine during 1918 Spanish flu epidemic saves lives
St. Louis Post-Dispatch ^ | 10/4/2014 | Tim O'neill

Posted on 10/14/2014 6:54:58 PM PDT by John S Mosby

ST. LOUIS • On Oct. 5, 1918, the city health department issued this warning: “Avoid persons with colds.”

Dr. Max C. Starkloff, health commissioner, knew that wasn’t nearly enough. Two days later, with Mayor Henry Kiel’s strong backing, he issued an emergency order closing schools, theaters, pool halls, playgrounds and other public places.

The strategy was known as “social distancing,” and the motive was to fight the Spanish flu that was sweeping the world. The misnamed influenza would kill many more people than the ghastly meat-grinder known as the Great War.

The order was extreme, but it worked — St. Louis’ death rate was the lowest among major American cities.

On the day Starkloff and Kiel announced the order, two soldiers died of the virus at Jefferson Barracks, the likely origin of the local outbreak. Six more died there the next day, and eight civilians died at St. Louis City Hospital. In two days, the number of local cases doubled to 1,150 patients.

Link- http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/look-back/look-back-quarantine-during-spanish-flu-epidemic-saves-lives/article_aa4b3141-696f-5849-bf37-ad1fcacb7f3f.html

(Excerpt) Read more at stltoday.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: ebola; epidemic; flu; ginakolata; influenza; quarantine; thespanishlady
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Quarantining saves lives in all communicable diseases. Proven in the Influenza pandemic that killed 670K Americans. Misnamed the Spanish flu, it may have come from Chinese laborers brought to the WWI front in Europe and to our soldiers who then brought it to the US. There is NO excuse for maintaining air travel from W. Africa to the US. No passenger originating in W. Africa should be allowed to board a flight to the US. Then we need to contain what HAS gotten here from incompetence, or perhaps deliberate actions to further break our system. This is criminal mismanagement.
1 posted on 10/14/2014 6:54:58 PM PDT by John S Mosby
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To: John S Mosby

Sorry- if you go to the article in order to read it they run you through a marketing question. Pardon me FReepers.


2 posted on 10/14/2014 6:56:19 PM PDT by John S Mosby (Sic Semper Tyrannis)
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To: John S Mosby

Liberian national elections were to be held today but were canceled because of Ebola.

Never let a crisis go to waste...


3 posted on 10/14/2014 6:56:58 PM PDT by TigerClaws
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To: John S Mosby

Wait for it - some Liberal somewhere will start squawking that quarantines are illegal.


4 posted on 10/14/2014 7:00:37 PM PDT by Jack Hammer
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To: John S Mosby

We are currently quarantining, but we are far from shutting down the public spaces.


5 posted on 10/14/2014 7:04:47 PM PDT by ansel12 ( LEGAL immigrants, 30 million 1980-2012, continues to remake the nationÂ’s electorate for democrats)
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To: Jack Hammer

Doing what has proven to work for the good of the USA has never been one of his traits.


6 posted on 10/14/2014 7:05:52 PM PDT by Sasparilla
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To: John S Mosby; neverdem; ProtectOurFreedom; Mother Abigail; EBH; vetvetdoug; Smokin' Joe; ...
Bring Out Your Dead

Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.

The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.

So far the false positive rate is 100%.

At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.

*sigh* Such is life, and death...

7 posted on 10/14/2014 7:06:06 PM PDT by null and void ("Agoraphobia": fear of the marketplace; "AlGoreaphobia": fear of the marketplace of ideas.)
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To: Jack Hammer
Wait for it - some Liberal somewhere will start squawking that quarantines are illegal.

Not illegal but certainly of questionable Constitutionality (1st Amendment freedom of assembly).

8 posted on 10/14/2014 7:06:25 PM PDT by lightman (O Lord, save Thy people and bless Thine inheritance, giving to Thy Church vict'ry o'er Her enemies.)
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To: TigerClaws

“Liberian national elections were to be held today but were canceled because of Ebola.”

The saving grace is that it will effect the people in cities (dems) before those in fly over country.


9 posted on 10/14/2014 7:07:35 PM PDT by babygene
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To: John S Mosby

Today Democrats would say a Spanish flu quarantine is another example of Republican anti-Hispanic bias


10 posted on 10/14/2014 7:07:46 PM PDT by Abakumov
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To: John S Mosby

Stopping all flights out of African hot zones is a good start...


11 posted on 10/14/2014 7:09:01 PM PDT by GOPJ (The beast roams the earth... there's been a seismic shift in our world. Rabbi Shalom Lewis)
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To: John S Mosby
There was a polo quarantine too I Think.
12 posted on 10/14/2014 7:10:51 PM PDT by SandRat (Duty - Honor - Country! What else needs said?)
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To: SandRat

Polio. Yes there was until the vaccine.


13 posted on 10/14/2014 7:11:47 PM PDT by John S Mosby (Sic Semper Tyrannis)
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To: GOPJ

It takes a real idiot or someone intent on being very destructive to not recognize that if you want to contain and treat something you restrict it to the smallest geographic area possible.


14 posted on 10/14/2014 7:11:49 PM PDT by morphing libertarian
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To: SandRat

In water polo, it’s only a 20 second exclusion.


15 posted on 10/14/2014 7:12:28 PM PDT by Blueflag (Res ipsa loquitur: non vehere est inermus)
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To: SandRat

My daughter played horse polo in college.
Some of my academy mates played water polo.
When I was young we had canceled school because of polio.


16 posted on 10/14/2014 7:14:51 PM PDT by Cold Heart
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To: Cold Heart

I meant polio not polo


17 posted on 10/14/2014 7:17:01 PM PDT by SandRat (Duty - Honor - Country! What else needs said?)
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To: John S Mosby

TB is another example.


18 posted on 10/14/2014 7:17:19 PM PDT by doc1019
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To: John S Mosby
My great-uncle lost his wife and all of his children to the 1918 influenza epidemic.



America demands Justice for the Fallen of Benghazi!

O stranger, tell the Lacedaemonians that we lie here, obedient to their command.

Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far; The LORD hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name. (Isaiah 49:1 KJV)

19 posted on 10/14/2014 7:18:11 PM PDT by ConorMacNessa (HM/2 USN, 3/5 Marines RVN 1969 - St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in Battle!)
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To: SandRat

We all know that. But we jump on people more for spelling than opinion sometimes. Keeps things a little lighter.
I did see where other Freepers beat me time wise which makes me look like I plagerized but just type slower:)


20 posted on 10/14/2014 7:22:02 PM PDT by Cold Heart
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