In 1918, no one had a vaccine, treatment or cure for the great flu pandemic as it ravaged the world and killed more than 50 million people. Despite a century of scientific progress, no one has any of that for the coronavirus, either.
Not once, historians say, did Wilson publicly speak about a disease that was killing Americans grotesquely and in huge numbers, even though he contracted it himself and was never the same after. Wilson fixated on America’s parallel fight in World War I like “a dog with a bone,” says John M. Barry, author of “The Great Influenza.”
In the manner of the day, there just had to be a catchy rhyme in circulation, too: “Cover up each cough and sneeze. If you don’t you’ll spread disease.” But the toll was heavier on average people and the poor, crowded in tenements, street cars and sweaty factories. Physicians, though, didn’t always know what they were doing. Medical journals at the time describe a rash of unusual treatments, some in the league of Trump’s amateur theories about disinfectant, blasts of lights and an unapproved drug that has both potential benefits and risks.
No, it’s not true that if you can’t hold your breath very long, you have COVID-19. Or that a vaccine from a lab only works on a disease created by a lab.
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