Sociologist sees 'haunting' similarities between 20th, 21st century pandemic responses in U.S.

Jan. 13—The last time Tom Soltis spoke to the American Association of University Women's Murrysville chapter, it was during the emergence of the omicron variant of the covid-19 virus.

Soltis recently retired after a career teaching sociology and anthropology at Westmoreland County Community College. He also is the author of "An Unwelcome Visit from the Spanish Lady: The 1918 Influenza Pandemic in Western Pennsylvania," and his presentation Thursday came as world health officials worked to learn more about another new variant that recently emerged, XBB.1.5.

Then, as now, Soltis can think of only one word to describe the glut of similarities between both pandemics: haunting.

"We saw controversy over the origin of the 'Spanish flu,' which did not originate in Spain," Soltis said. "In Spain, they called it 'the French disease.' In France, they called it 'the German disease.' "

The globe was embroiled in World War I during the influenza epidemic of 1918, the largest mass movement of humans in history up that point. It certainly played a role in how the disease spread so quickly, ultimately infecting about 50% of the world's population (1.8 billion) at the time, Soltis said.

Vast advancements in transportation over the past 100 years have only increased an airborne virus' ability to spread around the globe in short order.

"You had a lot of pushback against health regulations in both instances," Soltis said. "Dr. Benjamin Franklin Royer, who headed Pennsylvania's health department during the 1918 pandemic, knew what was the right thing to do, tried to get people to do it, and was vilified for it."

That included the closure of a large number of public gathering spaces and a directive to wear masks when venturing out.

Given a literal century of medical advancements between the 1918 and covid-19 pandemics, Soltis said the pushback against the best available medical advice was the most surprising similarity between the two.

Particularly on America's West Coast, mask mandates resulted in arrests in several cities including San Francisco, where some residents formed an "Anti-Mask League" in protest.

"I had to do some digging to find out about it, but it was reported," Soltis said. "That was the most surprising to me, and maybe the most haunting."

Other similarities between pandemics included:

—Changing the way we work — Soltis said in Washington, D.C., many office-based companies created staggered shifts in 1918-'19 to reduce the number of people sharing public transportation and office space at the same time.

—Using the pandemic as a political tool — Martin G. Brumbaugh, Pennsylvania's governor during the pandemic, was up for reelection, and his political opponent accused him of closing state business as a means to make it difficult to campaign, Soltis said.

—Debate over the virus's origin — Soltis said in the same way that the precise cause of the covid-19 virus in humans remains unknown, medical workers in 1918 could not nail down the exact reason the virus gained such a stronghold in humans.

"It was possibly a type of bird or swine flu that was transmitted," he said. "Our best guess is there was some intermediate host that allowed it to eventually jump to humans."

That is certainly nothing new, he said.

"Diseases have been with us since the beginning of human history, and they'll be with us until the end," Soltis said.

Patrick Varine is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Patrick by email at pvarine@triblive.com or via Twitter .