Las Vegas Age, October 5, 1918
A sudden increase in illness cases around Las Vegas–and worse. A significant death rate. Closed schools. Instructions to stay apart and wear masks. Inadequate medical staffing levels. Months of fear.
Oh, I’m not describing the ongoing coronovirus pandemic in Las Vegas (and the world). Rather, what I’m writing about are events hereabouts concerning the famous “Spanish flu” influenza pandemic from 1918 to 1920, as reported in the pages of the leading local newspaper of the day, the Las Vegas Age.
But maybe some things don’t change much.
The worldwide 1918 influenza epidemic (the word pandemic was known but not widely used at the time) was a serious problem in the Las Vegas area for about three months during the fall of 1918, then apparently came back in a lesser way a year later in early 1920. All told, it appears there officially were about 40 deaths in Clark County, where Las Vegas is, attributed to the influenza epidemic. However, that likely was a significant undercount.
Still, Las Vegas and Clark County back then were backwaters with a total official population in 1920 of only 4,859. So that worked out to one death for every 121 persons. This was 24% worse than the estimated national mortality rate–675,000 deaths in a population of 107 million--of one death for every 159 persons.
There are now 2 million people in Clark County. Thus, that 1918 rate would produce more than 16,000 deaths. But so far, there have only been 100 deaths attributed to coronavirus, or one death for every 20,000 persons. While the pandemic is far from over, the death rate is not even 1% of what was experienced in 1918. Right now the U.S. death rate is significantly higher than Clark County’s–one for every 14,700 residents. Continue reading →
On Monday, Columbia University announced the awarding of the prestigious Pulitzer Prizes for 2020. These haven’t been good times for print media, so the winners understandably were quick to proclaim their triumphs.
