Quotes from John M. Barry

Speculative explanations of that phenomenon come down to the fact that the virus mutates rapidly, which explains why a mantra at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control is "When you've seen one influenza season, you've seen one influenza season.

AN INFECTION is an act of violence; it is an invasion, a rape, and the body reacts violently.

Wilson declared, "It isn't an army we must shape and train for war, it is a nation.

an epidemic so extreme that New York City had required people to obtain passes to travel.

October, not April, would be the cruelest month.

Finally, if any NPIs are to have any effect, the public has to comply with the recommendations and sustain that compliance.

observing that America was "a country governed by public opinion," Gregory intended to help Wilson rule opinion and, through opinion, the country.

Simply delaying its arrival in a community or slowing its spread once there—just such minor successes—would have saved many, many thousands of lives.

Part of that relationship requires political leaders to understand the truth—and to be able to handle the truth.

NATURE CHOSE to rage in 1918, and it chose the form of the influenza virus in which to do

There was nothing even faintly exciting about this work; it was pure tedium, and pure boredom. And yet every step involved contact with something that could kill, and every step involved passion.

The force of an idea lies in its inspirational value. It matters very little if it is true or false.

when faced with desperate patients, doctors often do not have the heart—or, more accurately, they have too much heart—to do nothing.

But as horrific as the disease itself was, public officials and the media helped create that terror—not by exaggerating the disease but by minimizing it, by trying to reassure.

For if there is a single dominant lesson from 1918, it's that governments need to tell the truth in a crisis.

Today's world population is 6.3 billion. To give a sense of the impact in today's world of the 1918 pandemic, one has to adjust for population. If one uses the lowest estimate of deaths—the 21 million figure—that means a comparable figure today would be 73 million dead. The higher estimates translate into between 175 and 350 million dead.

In 1918 the lies of officials and of the press never allowed the terror to condense into the concrete. The public could trust nothing and so they knew nothing.

Despite that effort, whoever held power, whether a city government or some private gathering of the locals, they generally failed to keep the community together. They failed because they lost trust. They lost trust because they lied. (San Francisco was a rare exception; its leaders told the truth, and the city responded heroically.) And they lied for the war effort, for the propaganda machine that Wilson had created.

Hospitals, like every other industry, have gotten more efficient by cutting costs, which means virtually no excess capacity—on a per capita basis the United States has far fewer hospital beds than a few decades ago. Indeed, during a routine influenza season, usage of respirators rises to nearly 100 percent; in a pandemic, most people who needed a mechanical respirator probably would not get one.

I am Public Opinion. All men fear me!

Thus, only drastic action could prevent the spread of influenza throughout the city. Banning public meetings, closing businesses and schools, imposing an absolute quarantine on the Navy Yard and on civilian

Society cannot function if it is every man for himself. By definition, civilization cannot survive that.

that fear was "an important element to be bred in the civilian population. It is difficult to unite a people by talking only on the highest ethical plane. To fight for an ideal, perhaps, must be coupled with thoughts of self-preservation.

What could help, more than doctors, were nurses. Nursing could ease the strains on a patient, keep a patient hydrated, resting, calm, provide the best nutrition, cool the intense fevers. Nursing could give a victim of the disease the best possible chance to survive. Nursing could save lives.