Mild at First: A Brief History of The 1918 Bird Flu Pandemic

It started on farms in Kansas.

At first, it was severe.

Then it wasn't.

During the winter of 1917, a mystery flu started making locals sicker than doctors had ever seen. One of the doctors tried to sound the alarm, but the government ignored him. There was no national system for tracking or responding to flu infections. By springtime, the virus disappeared.

Everyone relaxed.

The flu resurfaced at an army base on the other side of the state. This time, it caused an outbreak among soldiers in overcrowded, unsanitary conditions. The military did nothing. They didn't care if their soldiers got sick, or even if some of them died. They did care about testing them for venereal diseases and limiting their access to alcohol and prostitutes. If a soldier came down with a venereal disease, they could be court-martialed.

Every Flu A in humans originated in birds and then made its way to us through an intermediary mammal host, usually pigs. In 1918, veterinarians were documenting regular flu infections in pigs and other mammals. They didn't know it at the time, but the virus (H1N1) was doing what H5N1 is now, jumping back and forth and trying to adapt to new hosts.

Compared to DNA viruses, RNA viruses like flu and Covid mutate hundreds or even thousands of times faster. Their antigens change. They don't evolve on a linear path. They shuffle back and forth between less or more contagious, and less or more pathogenic. When a virus finds the right environment, you get the worst of both. You get a virus that's highly contagious and extremely deadly.

That's what happened in 1918.

The flu hitched a ride with American soldiers to the trenches of Europe, but it wasn't the only virus to slam the army.

Measles struck first.