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" When John M. Barry, a celebrated historian and New York Times best-selling author, decided to write a book about the 1918 pandemic, his reasons were simple: studying a society in crisis is like examining an x-ray, he says -- past the surface and down to the nitty-gritty. Considering that a mysterious virus was killing more troops than bullets were during World War I, America was certainly in crisis mode in 1918. Barry&amp;#039;s book, The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History, offers readers insight into one of the deadliest periods in the country&amp;#039;s history.  Did a lack of information contribute to the spread of the influenza virus? Public authorities at every level told half-truths at best -- sometimes they outright lied. The press was complacent because they thought that was the right thing to do to keep spirits up. People were terrified. On the one hand, they were getting these horrific symptoms; on the other hand, they were hearing that this is really just ordinary influenza, and there&amp;#039;s nothing to worry about. Society began to disintegrate. People were literally starving to death, not because there was no food around but because others were too frightened to bring food to them.  Can you illustrate the social impact this disease had on the nation? There was one incident in Philadelphia, one of the hardest hit cities, involving a then-medical student who was put in charge of an emergency hospital. He lived 12 miles away, and he saw so few cars on the road in a city of almost 2 million people that he started counting them as he drove home everyday. One night he did not see a single other car on the road. He said the life of the city had almost stopped.  Were there any cities that tried to adequately warn and prepare the citizens about the fatality of the disease? San Francisco would be the best example of a city that told the truth from the beginning. The mayor, the city council, the labor unions and the business community all joined forces [to educate people]. The newspaper ran a full page that said, &amp;quot;Wear a mask and save your life.&amp;quot; That&amp;#039;s a different message than other cities were getting: &amp;quot;This is ordinary influenza by another name.&amp;quot; What do you think is the likelihood of a flu pandemic in the U.S. today? There&amp;#039;s going to be another pandemic eventually, whether it started two weeks ago and we don&amp;#039;t know it yet, or whether it will come in 15 or 20 years. There&amp;#039;s no way to predict it. Avian flu is one of the fastest mutating viruses in existence, and that mutation rate gives it the opportunity of jumping species. It&amp;#039;s done that as far back as we can look in history, and it will do it again. However, not all pandemics are lethal like 1918&amp;#039;s. What methods do you think are effective in preventing another widespread influenza pandemic? There are a lot of people doing epidemiological studies of what they call &amp;quot;social distancing&amp;quot; measures, including closing schools or urging everyone who can to work from home. If you can intervene early, you can have a dramatic impact on the course of the disease even without vaccines, which are going to take us -- for the foreseeable future -- many, many months before we have an adequate supply. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a1980/4219901/>