Jennie Worden's List: Life Sciences

A few years ago the Center where I work at the University of Michigan undertook a study of a small number of communities in the United States that "escaped" the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic.

After eliminating a few communities that some scholars claimed had escaped 1918 (such as Darien, Connecticut) and unearthing a few new ones (Fletcher, Vertmont), we wrote a report and created a digital archive with primary source materials.

These seven communities had death rates in the range of 0 to 3, although varying infection rates.

What allowed them to "escape" the 1918-1919 pandemic, which took approximately 650,000 lives in the United States, and, some estimates say, 50 million worldwide?

First, they had spatial characteristics that made them remote, inaccessible, or already under some kind of social quarantine. For example, the naval base at Yerba Buena island, San Francisco, could only be reached by boat, and all traffic in and out was strictly controlled during fall 1918. During the period that exacting boundary control was in force, no one presented with or died of influenza. The Western Pennsylvania Institution for the Blind, located in Pittsburgh, in keeping with patterns of the early 20th century, segregated blind children from the rest of society, an arrangement that protected this community during fall 1918.

We coined the term "protective sequestration" to define this action, of communities consciously shielding themselves from potential incursion of the virus before any cases were reported in their vicinity.

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