The communities that instituted social distancing policies early and sustained them over the course of the epidemic had lower death rates. Ohio was largely saved from the devastation of the flu by being located closer to the center of the country. The disease is, however, spreading throughout the state,” John J. Adams, acting university president, wrote at the time.The Lantern published a letter from Dr. Emery Hayhurst, a department of public health and sanitation official, that pleaded with students to take every precaution against the disease.“The disease is acquired through the nose and mouth and is spread chiefly by the secretions which come from these orifices. Ohio State managed to beat Denison 34-0, but faced a disappointing season. Another way to prevent getting this page in the future is to use Privacy Pass. More than 20 million people died during World War I, but the virus would kill even more — about 30 million more — in hospital beds around the world.Before Ohio health officials ordered all public places, including universities and schools, to close down Oct. 11, 1918, the few murmurs of influenza at Ohio State were hopeful and ignorant.A Lantern article a few days before reads, “Today’s good news from the surgeon general’s office informs us that Spanish influenza is losing its ‘grip.’ Comforting, indeed.”Four days later, Ohio State administrators closed campus at 6 p.m. and all non-military students were sent home and told to check their local newspapers for when they could come back, according to Lantern archives.“The situation in the University as to influenza is not alarming.
Wingert wrote that when the flu had reached the campus in full force, the hospital was completely overwhelmed for days.Although the death rate was low, “the sick list was large and the interruption was serious,” Thompson wrote.About 400 men became sick and shipments to the university of uniforms, bedding and equipment were delayed, according to the annual report.The war context is important to understand how the flu epidemic spread across the globe, Jim Harris, an Ohio State lecturer and historian studying infectious diseases and public health in the early 20th century, said.Harris said the first cases of influenza were reported in March 1918 at Camp Funston in Fort Riley, Kansas. By the end of March more than 1,000 soldiers at the camp had been hospitalized with the flu and 38 soldiers died after developing pneumonia.The war amplified the spread and lethality of the flu.Harris said the flu spread rapidly to the coasts and then to Europe as troops were moved from one military installation to another.Factories making materials for the war effort couldn’t shut down, making them hotspots for the disease to spread among workers, he said.Hospital systems were strained because most skilled doctors and nurses were overseas treating wounded soldiers, Harris said, “which just likely exacerbated the number of people who were infected, which in turn exacerbates the enormity of the death toll.”“Globalization is wonderful. However, when the disease begins to wane, so does funding.“What it really speaks to is almost two centuries now of chronic inattention to public health, except at moments of agitation and alarm about particular outbreaks,” she said.A lesson learned from the response to the 1918 flu epidemic is that social distancing works, Fairchild said. He played college football at Ohio State University from 1937 to 1939 and was a consensus first-team end on the 1939 College Football All-America Team. Credit: Ohio State ArchivesDuring the 1918 influenza outbreak, street car passengers in Seattle, Washington were required to wear face masks. He also served as an assistant coach for the Ohio State Buckeyes football team from 1946 to 1978. The cities and states hardest hit by the disease were on the coasts.Students returned to campus Nov. 12, 1918, one day after an armistice ended World War I on the eleventh day of the eleventh month at the eleventh hour. An army cook was hospitalized with a high fever and in a matter of days, the virus spread to more than 500 soldiers. Football program: Denison University vs. The corps was organized in the summer of 1918 and taught military and aeronautics courses to male students.The beginning of the training corps aligned almost perfectly with influenza coming to campus.In the annual report, University President William Oxley Thompson wrote that the onset of the influenza outbreak and the start of the training corps “proved a most unfortunate circumstance.”Little attention was given to preparing the 20-bed hospital at the army barracks with the equipment and supplies it needed to take care of sick students. The Buckeyes compiled a 3–3 record, yet outscored opponents 134–41. It’s going to be economically devastating,” Fairchild said. Credit: The Lantern ArchivesThe Students’ Army Training Corps hospital where military students with influenza were treated on Ohio State’s campus. Don't forget that part In the fall of 1918, influenza was making a deadly comeback in the U.S.Four years and three months into the world’s first industrial war, America saw its deadliest month in October caused not by the machine guns, landmines or constant shelling, but by a virus. Fairchild is also the chair of the safe campus and scientific advisory subgroup for the post-pandemic operations task force, which is charged with returning operations back to campus once COVID-19 “has been deemed contained,” according to a university press release.“It’s a predictable, historically recurrent story that we — not just as a nation, but as a globe — we can get alarmed at particular moments in time at the outset of epidemics,” Fairchild said.Being alarmed means a response will be aggressive to try and control the spread or effects of a disease and public health funding increases, Fairchild said. He and Director of the Ohio Department of Health Dr. Amy Acton have recommended people cover their mouths and noses when in public and to stay at least 6 feet away from others.There are similarities between the response to COVID-19 and other diseases, Amy Fairchild, a public health historian and the dean of the college of public health, said. You’re going to have more chaos, more devastation when you have people dropping dead in the streets because government’s not doing anything.”About 1,500 Ohioans died after contracting the flu, according to the Ohio History Connection’s website.