It was an ordinary day. A day in September of 1918 when the city of Philadelphia hosted the Liberty Loans Parade which happened to become one of the worst super spreader events in the history of the United States. Wasn't long before the city of Lancaster began to feel the effects of the so-called "Spanish Flu." Same thing happened about 100 years ago as what happened recently when the Lancaster city Board of Health decided to succumbed to business and political pressure and made the bad decision to open the city prematurely. Bad decision both times since it endangered tens, even hundreds of thousands of lives. It was six days after the parade in 1918 that Dr. Benjamin Franklin Royer, the head of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, issued a crowd ban which was much like the social distancing ban from this pandemic. Dr. Royer's mandate was the first of it's kind from what at the time was a new Department of Health. In Lancaster, the city's Board of Health, which is no longer in existence, closed public theaters and restaurants. It was a bit too late since entire Lancaster families died. By early October of 1914, there were over 600 cases of the flu with 4 deaths. A few days later the number had quadrupled with more than a dozen dead. But, almost all public places remained open which allowed the flu to further spread and take dozens more lives in the city of Lancaster. Finally in mid-October the Board of Health in Lancaster realized the magnitude of the flu and shuttered public places and limited travel in and out of downtown Lancaster. But, the business owners pressured the city and the following day everything was reopened. Sound familiar to anyone? The Board of Health justified their decision by saying the flu was over and began to spread the news through the local newspaper like the Intelligencer Journal. That decision gave a false sense of security that would last until the end of the pandemic. The battle between the city's decision to be open and the state's decision to keep everything closed began to heat up by the end of October. Dr. Royer's battle heated up with mandates to close into November, but the city of Lancaster's Board of Health still did what they wanted and kept the city open. So, Dr. Royer had traffic blocked and began prosecuting business owners who remained open. But, his decisions to do so didn't help keep the flu at bay. The city of Lancaster was among the very few in Pennsylvania to disregard the closure notice. Eventually hundreds died in the city alone. Eventually the state rerouted trains around Lancaster's Train Station and had State Police block the roads. The state sealed-off the city of Lancaster! What is unusual is that the same thing happened during the pandemic we are now part of in 2021. Lancaster County had a plan to reopen in defiance of Pennsylvania's Governor Wolf. A Democratic minority member on the Board of Commissioners maintained at a May, 2020 meeting that "the county has no legal authority" to reopen. A Republican Commisioner countered and said the Governor's order was unenforceable. Gov. Wolf decided to withhold federal monies, but they had already been given to Lancaster. Since that first reopening, Lancaster County has closed and partially reopened to varying degrees. The fight over personal liberties during a public health crises seems to transcend time as seen in both 1918 and 2021. Lancaster's reaction to the 1918 influenza pandemic and COVID-19 are almost identical despite being a century apart. Will the city and county of Lancaster take into consideration what happened 100 years ago when they debate what to do after our current pandemic?
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