EDMONTON -- More than 100 years ago, the world faced a similar crisis to the one it does now.
As soldiers returned home from the First World War, they brought with them a deadly, fast-spreading virus.
“You had trainloads of soldiers returning from a particularly difficult war,” said Edmonton historian Shirley Lowe. “Several of them already had respiratory issues because of the mustard gas and malnutrition they had suffered.”
The Spanish Flu hit people between the ages of 20 and 44 particularly hard. City archivist Kathryn Ivany says 445 Edmontonians died in the fall of 1918.
“There was already generational loss of young men because of the war and then to also have them subject to massive die offs because of the flu. It wasn’t the flu so much, it left them subject to pneumonia.”
“It was the perfect storm,” said Lowe. “We didn’t have the medications, we didn’t have any of the machinery we do now and we know better now how protect ourselves.”
One of few photographs of Edmonton during the pandemic shows people — in masks — lining Jasper Avenue for a parade celebrating the end of the war.
“They didn’t stop them from congregating,” said Ivany. “Those kinds of group activities carried on much longer than we’ve allowed.”
“It was a horrible idea but again people were celebrating the end of the war,” said Lowe. ”They saw the war as a bigger issue and in the end, the Spanish Flu killed more people than who died in the First World War.”
Since many doctors and nurses were still overseas, women and students stepped up to take care of the ill. The U of A’s Pembina Hall was converted into an emergency hospital and the city was divided into sections, with schools acting as hospitals and volunteer coordination centres.
“They were not trained nurses; these were people who were volunteers from the community and frankly a lot of them didn’t survive,” said Lowe.
It’s estimated the Spanish Flu killed between 20 and 40 million people worldwide. In Canada, about 55,000 lives were lost. The pandemic prompted the creation of our country’s first federal department of health.
”Previously it was all up to the individual provinces to deal with, so something like stopping travel between provinces, they weren’t able to do that,” said Ivany. “I think it’s easy to forget some of these bad pieces of history but there are lessons to be learned.”
Both historians believe damage from the pandemic justifies strict public health measures to stop the spread of COVID-19.
”Even though it’s hard, this is a proven effective deterrent of the disease,” said Ivany. “To keep us isolated from each other.”
“It took a while for people to realize there really was a danger and to take it seriously,” said Lowe. “This should really give people some thought.”
