Like COVID-19, the 1918 influenza pandemic hit hard and fast, going from a handful of reported cases in a few cities to a nationwide outbreak within a few weeks. Many communities issued several rounds of various closure orders in an attempt to keep the disease in check. While a century separates these pandemics, there is a multitude of significant parallels between them.
COVID-19
At the start of the pandemic, students and faculty from U-M’s History Department collaborated with Bentley archivists to find creative ways to produce a successful research project, even without physical access to archival materials.
historical archives
As part of an urgent plan to reduce expenditures, Michigan Medicine has halted construction on the new inpatient hospital. As disappointing as this decision is, it may provide some perspective to realize that this is not the first time that construction on a new University of Michigan hospital has been suspended indefinitely in the face of an economic catastrophe and a pandemic.
Michigan Medicine
An unfamiliar strain of influenza reached Ann Arbor some time in the final days of September 1918. The early symptoms felt like a common cold plus “more marked irritation of the mucous membrane of the nose, mouth, and throat.” By October 1, 10 men and two women in their 20s and 30s, none of them University of Michigan students, had been hospitalized.
Michigan in the World
U-M scientist Thomas Francis broke new ground in the fight against influenza with his work on the first flu shot.
public health