The first real pandemic to hit the United States occurred a few years before I was born. That being said, it was still fresh enough in people’s minds that it was talked about all during my teen years. The Spanish Flu, according to statistics, is reckoned to have killed more people worldwide than the Bubonic plague. My Great Grandmother, our family matriarch, acted as the area wise woman and was frequently called on for medical advice or assistance. By the time I reached some extent of social awareness she had stopped riding her old white mare to households that summoned her. I remember riding that old mare myself however. Grandma brewed up a syrupy stuff made primarily of elderberries and dosed all her family as well as others in the area, as a defense against the flu. I was dosed with the stuff a good many times during my youth. Did it work? Who knows? One of my Great Aunts died of the Spanish Flu but she lived over in Ohio and did not partake of the syrup. All her brothers and sisters survived. Some people who took Grandma’s elixir died anyway but the theory was they did not take it soon enough to do any good. Yeah, well there’s that.
The Spanish Flu’s main impact occurred in 1918 but people in our area began to die of it in 1917 and continued through 1920. The estimated Spanish Flu deaths in the United States are 673,000 people. That figure is probably low because deaths of many infants and elderly were often attributed to other caused.
The next pandemic, again the flu, occurred in 1957 – 58. It was called the Asian flu and killed an estimated 69,800 U.S deaths. A vaccine was developed by this time that slowed the pandemic down.
Following the Asian flu we had the third pandemic, the Hong Kong flu and the estimated U.S. deaths for that one is 34,000. The last flu pandemic occurred in 2009 and was called Swine Flu. The estimated U.S. deaths for this flu are around 10,000.
So, in less than the last hundred years, the United States experienced four pandemics, all of flu of one kind or another, that resulted in the estimated deaths of 786,800 people. We are still losing 2 to 3 thousand people every year to the flu. Ebola is not a pandemic. It’s an epidemic in West Africa. At this writing, one person in the United States has died from Ebola. All other infected people have been or are in the process of being cured.
Why are we not in a panic and quarantining people with the Flu? Okay, Flu is pretty boring when compared to exotic Ebola but Flu can kill you just as dead. Panic, panic, panic! Run in circles, etc.