I just finished a book about the Spanish flu, Pale Rider. Pretty interesting although I found myself having to ignore the author's unquestioning faith in vaccination in general. Native peoples in Alaska, as you say, were very hard hit. There were one or two small villages that were completely wiped out.
I just finished a book about the Spanish flu, Pale Rider. Pretty interesting although I found myself having to ignore the author's unquestioning faith in vaccination in general. Native peoples in Alaska, as you say, were very hard hit. There were one or two small villages that were completely wiped out.
Especially back then, people were inclined to ascribe any differences racially. I think cultural prior exposure to related microbes is a much better explanation.
It is, and it strongly supports the interpretation that it was a return of a previously circulating version of influenza A, i.e. H1, which was active after 1847 but died out gradually - it would have died out in remote places years or decades before bigger countries. Ethnic trends in non-remote places are more ambiguous, so there were certainly other confounders; but overall a mountain of evidence that puts "soldier vaxxes" in fantasy territory.
I just finished a book about the Spanish flu, Pale Rider. Pretty interesting although I found myself having to ignore the author's unquestioning faith in vaccination in general. Native peoples in Alaska, as you say, were very hard hit. There were one or two small villages that were completely wiped out.
Especially back then, people were inclined to ascribe any differences racially. I think cultural prior exposure to related microbes is a much better explanation.
It is, and it strongly supports the interpretation that it was a return of a previously circulating version of influenza A, i.e. H1, which was active after 1847 but died out gradually - it would have died out in remote places years or decades before bigger countries. Ethnic trends in non-remote places are more ambiguous, so there were certainly other confounders; but overall a mountain of evidence that puts "soldier vaxxes" in fantasy territory.