A story reprinted from the Greenfield Recorder 101 years ago, on Jan. 1, 1919, titled “Influenza returns,” offers both a cautionary tale and a precursor of districtwide cooperation, courtesy of the then-new state highway and motorcar.
The influenza pandemic of 1918 was first reported in this newspaper on Oct. 2, 1918 with the headline, “Influenza with us,” followed the next week, Oct. 9, 1919, by the headline, “Takes heavy toll.” Three months later, the pandemic again made the front page with a story headlined, “Influenza returns.” This story from the past, like the two prior ones, is reprinted today for whatever lessons it offers readers living through the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020.
The first lesson is obvious: It came back.
Just as some health experts today are predicting, the course of a coronavirus is up and down. As precautions relax, the virus resurges, waxing and waning until the population acquires either herd immunity, in which more people have developed antibodies against it than those who have not, or a vaccine achieves the same end. In Franklin County in 1919, the flu reappeared three months later, prompting authorities to adopt another general closing notice.
The other lesson from 101 years ago is the precursor of districtwide cooperation in the form of the first call for a district nurse. Back then, best practice was for a town to have a public health nurse to give practical lessons in hygiene, sanitation and food. This would have been a luxury for small towns. But the pandemic led to a discussion of “whether it is not advisable for small communities to unite in nursing districts after the plan now followed in school superintendency districts.” South Deerfield and Sunderland, “being only two miles apart and connected by a state highway,” were offered up as prime candidates: “It seems that a nurse equipped with an auto could cover both without great inconvenience.”
Today, the Franklin Regional Council of Governments still adheres to this early model, offering cooperative public health and other services that individual towns cannot afford by themselves.
The flu pandemic of 2020 will no doubt offer lessons of its own for today’s and future generations.