Daily Times

The arrival of Omicron and the extraordinary mutations that may have created a far more contagious and possibly lethal virus paints what could be a very grim picture for 2022. Thus far, Covid-19, A-D variants, will claim more lives than were killed in all the wars the United States has fought since 1776. Omicron threatens to increase those 800,000 deaths well into seven digits.

The Spanish Flu of 1918-20 once featured prominently during the reporting of the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic. Reminding ourselves of comparisons with the 1918-20 pandemic and how it ended is timely. Chapter Six of my new book “The Fifth Horseman and the New MAD: How Massive Attacks of Disruption Became the Looming Existential Danger to a Divided Nation and the World at Large” does that.

About 675,000 Americans died of the Spanish Flu. 15 to 35-year-olds were surprisingly susceptible to the virus. Those deaths were equivalent to about two million Americans today. No vaccines, ventilators and anti-viral drugs existed then. The country was largely rural and only a small slice of Americans had access to electricity. Driving coast-to-coast took weeks as no interstate highway system was in place. After Warren Harding became president in January 1921, that would be rectified.

After the Spanish Flu receded, the US failed to put in place guardrails to prevent a financial meltdown.

The Spanish Flu came in three waves, growing deadlier with each successive mutation. By the time herd immunity had dampened the impact of the pandemic, the virus would still survive in less virulent and semi-latent forms. Related strains would cause three later, less deadly pandemics in 1957, 1968 and 2009.

After it receded, the US public promptly developed collective amnesia about the Spanish Flu. President Harding, until his untimely death in 1923, oversaw what would be the greatest economic boom in America’s history. Powered by the massive electrification of the nation, productivity soared to stratospheric levels. A flourishing car industry generated huge sales with concurrent demand for steel, rubber, gasoline and, of course, gas stations, accommodations and restaurants, all accelerated by the passage of the 1921 National Highways Act. New technologies in the form of radio, aviation and movies, likewise fueled the fabulous Roaring Twenties that followed.

Judging how the Covid-19 pandemic may unfold can benefit from this history. Like the Spanish Flu, the virus mutations have become more lethal. If this pattern continues and vaccinations and booster shots are not sufficient to halt Omicron, the onset of 2022 could be accompanied by higher infection and death rates. At some stage, if history repeats, subsequent mutations may not be as dangerous as Omicron. However, the newness of this virus has limited studies and the collection of enough data to determine how dangerous Omicron might be.

If a dramatic spike in cases and deaths occurs, the government will have to consider taking strong and unpalatable actions to include mandating vaccines, social distancing and wearing of masks despite the predictable backlash and possible violence. Shutting down parts of the economy and schools could be necessary if the pandemic continues to spread unchecked. All that, given the political deadlock in Congress; what appears to be the demise of the Build Back Better bill, the centrepiece of President Biden’s agenda; inflation that may be persistent and not transitory; and of course, Russian military intimidation of NATO by its buildup around Ukraine, makes the new year very inhospitable for the White House.

After the Spanish Flu receded and the economy boomed, the US failed to put in place guardrails to prevent a financial meltdown and the ensuing 1929 crash. The US, under President Woodrow Wilson, failed to establish a stable post-World War I system and withdrew into isolationism. The victors of the Great War tragically and stupidly imposed crippling reparations on defeated Germany. Two decades later, a second world war broke out and unfinished business from 1914-18.

It seems unlikely that the US will repeat, a century later, an unprecedented economic boom. But it must deal with the dangerous consequences of policies that have contributed to the adversarial relationships among the US, China and Russia. No one is forecasting another 1939 and a world war. But instead of rallying the nation and forging international cooperation to battle the pandemic, Covid has had the directly opposite effect.

Aside from vaccines and cures, the biggest difference with 1918-20, so far, is the profound political divisions that exist today that a pandemic has only widened. And this pandemic may be far from over.

The writer is a senior advisor at Washington, DC’s Atlantic Council and a published author