UNC historian says NC reopened too soon during 1918 pandemic. Don’t let that history repeat.

As some clamor to reopen North Carolina, they would do well to take a moment to listen to James Leloudis, a history professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and an expert on Southern history, who has studied how the global 1918 influenza pandemic tore through North Carolina.

Like today, the arrival of a deadly infectious disease in 1918 forced the closing of schools, churches, nonessential businesses and limited public gatherings. Also like today, there was a dangerous restlessness to return to normal.

The 1918 pandemic came through North Carolina in three waves: a small one in the summer of that year, a big one in the fall and winter and another smaller one in the winter of 1919.

“What gives me pause when I look back at 1918 is I think about the second wave,” Leloudis said. “People did social distancing and there was this sense of ‘that’s behind us and we can all move on’ and then the second wave hit and it was just devastating.”

By the end, 20 percent of the state – some 520,000 people – were infected and 13,644 died.

“One clear lesson of the 1918 pandemic is to be wary of that kind of thinking,” Leloudis said. “Letting down the guard in that case turned out to be disastrous. It’s the same situation we are in now.”

In North Carolina as of Friday, there were 10,923 confirmed cases of infection with the new coronavirus and 399 deaths. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease doctor, says the U.S. is almost certain to face a second surge this fall and winter.

Many say the COVID-19 crisis will change American society and politics, but Leloudis said that was not the case after the 1918 pandemic. Health care in North Carolina did not improve and the number of hospitals actually declined.

Leloudis said one troubling aspect of the COVID-19 crisis is that it also mirrors the racial inequities of a century ago.

In the current crisis, blacks are also more vulnerable. They are 22% of the population but represent 39% of COVID-19 cases and 35% of deaths from the disease. It was the same in 1918. The death rate among whites then was 286 per 100,000. Among blacks it was 413 per 100,000. Then, as now, blacks had less access to health care and a higher incidence of health issues related to poverty.

“It’s really sobering that a century later that kind of racial health disparity is so familiar,” he said. “You would have hoped that post-civil rights and the war on poverty we would have changed some of that, but it turns out it’s a very familiar story.”

This time, though, Leloudis said the we are not doomed to repeat history.

“It really is an opportunity for all of us to pause and think about what kind of state we want to live in and what kind of country, to think about the obligations we owe each other,” Leloudis said. “It would be a terrible loss to let that opportunity pass.”

The nation will attempt to move on once this novel coronavirus crisis is past, but he said we should take more from the lives lost than was taken after 1918 pandemic. This is a chance to build a stronger, more resilient society.

“We owe that to the now 60,000 people who have died. It would be a way of making those deaths meaningful,” Leloudis said.

Those killed by COVID-19 in North Carolina ask us, as the victims of influenza did in 1918, to find a way to provide better health care for all Americans.

This time, Leloudis hopes we’ll listen.

Barnett: 919-829-4512, nbarnett@ newsobserver.com