What was the 1918 flu strain and what happened with it?
The flu strain that started the 1918 pandemic had been the deadliest disease outbreak of the 20th century, infecting about 500 million people and killing up to 50 million, with 675,000 here in the United States. This particular strain was very virulent and aggressive, and it didn’t take long for it to infect a lot of the population fast.
The surprise came in the spring of 1919 when they thought the worst has passed, but the disease had another spike in early 1920. As it was a flu strain, it became more active in the cold months, when people are constrained by the weather to stay indoors, thus in close proximity to others, and because the fires and artificial heat dry out the skin, cracking it and providing more entry points in the system for the virus.
Many think the virus disappeared by the end of 1920. However, the truth is that it never actually did. It just continued to mutate, becoming less severe, and thus less important. It continues to exist to this day, just in a different form.
