Daily feature: The 1918 influenza pandemic
Every Wednesday, we feature a newspaper story written during the 1918 influenza pandemic that illustrates how the country contended with a national health emergency in the midst of an election year. To see more stories from 1918, click here.
On Sept. 30, the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin reported on the debate in New Jersey over closing schools in the midst of the influenza pandemic.
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The schools of Moorestown, Collingswood, and several other New Jersey towns have been closed owing to the growth and seriousness of the Spanish influenza epidemic throughout the section about Camden.
Many school children have contracted the disease, and it is feared it will be spread to nearly every family in the locality if the children are allowed to continue congregating in the school rooms daily.
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Click here to read the original article, courtesy of the University of Michigan Center for the History of Medicine and Michigan Publishing's Influenza Encyclopedia.
Additional activity
In this section, we feature examples of other federal, state, and local government activity, private industry responses, and lawsuits related to the pandemic.
- On Oct. 1, Judge Susan Paradise Baxter, of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, dismissed a claim by four student-athletes who were refused entry to a golf tournament administered by the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA). The plaintiffs alleged that eight days before the tournament, the PIAA "arbitrarily and capriciously reduced the number of qualifiers." The students argued that "the reduction of numbers has no quantifiable relationship on the spread of Covid-19 as it relates to outdoor activities such as golf." They asked the court to order the PIAA to allow them to participate in the tournament. Baxter denied that request, writing in her opinion, "It is not the court's job to decide the better course, but to ensure the one taken was not arbitrary and capricious, or for a wrongful purpose. Although the decision was a painful one for the plaintiffs, it was done with a rational basis and passes muster under the law." Baxter was appointed to the court by President Donald Trump (R).
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