Pandemics and the resilient people of Taos
Generations of locals have met the challenges of communicable disease for more than 100 years
Illness has a way of revealing our vulnerabilities. We feel like our bodies have betrayed us. It’s such an abhorrent idea for some that they deny it even when sniffles, sneezes, coughing and watery eyes almost certainly give it away. But, when the illness begins to spread and it seems like everyone around you has “the bug,” it’s only then we begin to take it seriously.
That’s been the case throughout modern history, even with the more recent COVID-19 coronavirus that killed more than a million U.S. citizens since it was officially recognized as a pandemic in March 2020.
The 1968 ‘epidemic’
In 1968, an influenza “epidemic” that had begun to grip the nation finally found its way into Taos County. “It may, or may not be the much-publicized Hong Kong virus — but whatever the proper name, influenza has hit Taos County in epidemic proportions,” a front page story in the Taos News declared on Dec. 12 of that year. Arriving in the region at a time when local cultural and traditional celebrations usually bring families and friends together, the illness was certainly an unwelcome holiday gift.
Nationwide, the year 1968 was notable for a lot of other things that garnered bigger headlines. Chief among them were massive protests, NASA space flights, and assassinations of prominent figures Robert Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Here in Taos, community leaders from Rio Arriba, Mora and Taos Counties were engaged in debate over a new “war on poverty” organization called the Northern New Mexico Community Action Program.
“Remembered less frequently is the 1968 H3N2 pandemic,” according to a 2020 article published by the American Public Health Association on the National Institutes of Health National Library of Medicine website. “Although the estimated morbidity and mortality of this pandemic was only a small fraction of that associated with the 1918 H1N1 pandemic, the ongoing impact of influenza A(H3N2) virus on public health has been profound.” More
on the 1918 pandemic in a bit.
This so-called “Hong Kong flu” killed thousands all over the world and hung around until 1972. Then, as now, its spread was exacerbated by air travel.
Rapid spread
On Sept. 2, 1968, a Marine who had just returned from Vietnam is believed to be the first to introduce this flu to the U.S. mainland. “Before leaving Vietnam, the Marine had shared a bunker with a friend recently returned from Hong Kong,” the NLM article states. “An additional 22 cases occurred in San Diego among students and contacts from the Marine Corps Drill Instructors School.”
Soon after, military doctors reported outbreaks in Hawaii and Alaska. Recognizing its seriousness, officials acted swiftly. By Sept. 6, National Communicable Disease Center officials requested cooperation from all state health officers, epidemiologists and laboratory directors for ‘monitoring the importation of the virus and in conducting surveillance for influenza.’”
However, the flu spread rapidly. By October, it had shown up in Arizona, then Colorado and soon New Mexico and many other states. “All 50 states experienced increased school absenteeism during the pandemic; 23 faced school and college closures and 31 saw elevated worker absenteeism,”
the article states.
In Taos, members of the public were being told a “standard flu shot is advisable, since it apparently gives some protection,” the Taos News reported. Schools were just beginning to see some absences because of the flu, however. “Taos High School this week reported a jump of about 25 percent in absences. Four faculty and staff members were out Tuesday (Dec. 10).”
Stay away if you have the flu
A group called the Taos County Medical Society “urged that persons most prone to the illness take extra care to protect themselves. Specially named were older persons, pregnant women, children and anyone suffering from chronic debilitating disease.” The Taos News further reported that Holy Cross Hospital, which then was located at the corner of what is now La Posta Road and Paseo del Pueblo Sur, had every bed filled. Head nurse Sister Virgil asked “everyone with friends or relatives now in the hospital, to ‘stay away if you have the flu.’”
In the Dec. 19 edition of the Taos News, a report stated no vaccine was yet available and that “hundreds more people” had been struck … however, “no deaths attributable to the influenza have been reported to date.”
Ultimately, the 1968 flu epidemic took the lives of an estimated “one million to four
million” people, according to an article by Kara Rogers on the “1968 flu pandemic” at britannica.com. “Although a vaccine was developed against the virus, it became available only after the pandemic had peaked in many countries.”
Additional flu outbreaks in 1957 and 1918
Less than a decade earlier, anotwer flu pandemic swept the world. Again, originating in Asia, this flu originated as an avian virus and was first reported in Singapore in February 1957, then in the U.S. by that summer. In all, this flu took the lives of 1.1 million people worldwide and 116,000 in the U.S.
But nothing compared to what had happened in 1918.
“The flu epidemic of 1918 has to be considered one of the worst epidemics in history,” Richard Melzer wrote in “A Dark and Terrible Moment: The Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918 in New Mexico,” published by the New Mexico Historical Review in 1982.
“Comparing the high fatality rate and the vast area affected by this epidemic to afflictions of the past, a London Times medical correspondent went so far as to write that ‘never since the Black Death has such a plague swept over the world.’” Melzer wrote. “It was estimated that one out of every five humans in the world suffered from the flu in 1918 and 1919. More than 21 million never recovered. In the words of the foremost authority on the epidemic, ‘it killed more humans than any other disease in a period of similar duration in the history of the world.’”
Interestingly, according to Melzer, details about the 1918 pandemic tend to be scant, especially since it swept the globe with horrific effect at the end of World War I. Even those who acknowledged the new threat tended to minimize its dangers to New Mexico, Melzer wrote.
“The Santa Fe New Mexican, for example, claimed that with ‘our salubrious ... atmosphere’ and our great distance from disease-infected ports there was ‘little likelihood that the Southwest will be visited by the epidemical malady.’ The Albuquerque Journal meanwhile counseled caution rather than fear. ‘The greatest danger,’ wrote the editor of the Journal, ‘is from the panic of fear that is spreading over the country.’ The disease is ‘nothing more nor less’ than the grippe, the Journal argued, and cautioned, do not ‘allow yourself to be frightened into your coffin.’ The arrival of Easterners who came to New Mexico to escape the disease served only to reenforce this naive view that calm thoughts and clean air would protect the Southwest,” Melzer wrote.
It was, however, one of the first times members of the public were encouraged to wear protective masks. Today, masks and other preventative measures such as immunizations, hand-washing and social distancing are recognized as factors that helped slow the COVID-19 coronavirus. At Taos and Picuris Pueblos in Taos County, tribal leaders took the unprecedented steps to close their borders to outside visitors. Taos Pueblo has since reopened, but Picuris remains closed.
As this column goes to press, the latest pandemic is still with us, but testing and treatments have made great strides in preventing COVID from wreaking the havoc it did in the early stages of the disease. Many loved ones are gone, many jobs were lost, and people are still picking up the pieces from disrupted lives, but at least the numbers of infected appear to be going down.
Maybe we’ll be better prepared the next time a pandemic happens. Fingers crossed.