In 1918 flu pandemic, Omaha had second surge of cases after lifting restrictions

Omaha World-Herals ^ | 05/02/2020 | Steven Liewer

[BenLurkin]

During October 1918, Omahans had chafed under restrictions that had closed churches, schools, movie houses, theaters and public gatherings, and had banned parades and large meetings. Already 442 people had died from the lung-clogging influenza...

So there was relief and excitement when Omaha Health Commissioner E.T. Manning and the State Board of Health announced that most restrictions would be lifted Saturday, Nov. 1.

Within a week, Manning threatened to restrict gatherings again after 30 cases and 11 deaths were reported in one day. That heralded a “double hump” in flu cases, which surged after a massive Armistice Day celebration Nov. 11 and made December 1918 almost as deadly a month as October.

...

Douglas County Health Director Adi Pour, Manning’s modern-day counterpart, acknowledged Friday that public fatigue with the restrictions is a factor today, too. She allowed county restrictions to expire late last week even in the face of climbing numbers of positive tests, though some state measures remain in place.

“We need to be realistic,” she said, while urging residents to “be careful these next two weeks.”

[logi_cal869]

I call bullshit. This is from the website for the Nebraska History Museum:

Omaha alone saw 974 deaths between October 5 and December 31. The state’s overall death toll was variously reported between 2,800 to 7,500 people—a broad range because Nebraska’s reporting was so woefully incomplete. Medical professionals gave various reasons for this. Many said that the large number of patients left them little time to keep good records.

Federal officials considered Nebraska’s numbers so inaccurate that they omitted them when calculating the nation’s total infection rate and mortality.

This desperation to attach significance to events in San Francisco (Anti-mask League) and Omaha from 1918-1919 exposes the ulterior motivations.