Opening Remarks Prepared for Delivery
By the Honorable Mike Leavitt
Secretary of Health and Human Services
March 20, 2006

That Great Pandemic also touched Pennsylvania.

Earlier, I noted John Barry's description of what happened in
Philadelphia. Let me give you a fuller picture now.

On September 27th, 1918 Pennsylvania optimistically reported that
"comparatively few cases" had been reported among the civilian
population. Then influenza took hold.

On October 4th, the state reported that the disease was epidemic in
Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Nearly 15,000 cases were counted in the
first 18 days of October, and the dreadful toll continued to climb.

Philadelphia was one of the hardest hit cities in United States. As
the disease spread, essential services collapsed. Nearly 500 policemen
failed to report for duty. Firemen, garbage collectors, and city
administrators fell ill.

The city's only morgue overflowed. It was built to handle 36 bodies,
but contained more than 500. Bodies accumulated in the morgue's
hallways and lay there rotting. Five supplementary morgues were
eventually opened. Convicts were recruited to dig graves. There were
never enough coffins, and people would steal them from undertakers
when they could.

Public gatherings were banned to restrict the spread of the disease.
Streetcars were shut down. Schools, churches, and places of public
meeting were closed, and so were theaters and places of amusement.

The human cost was unbearable.

Selma Epp remembered her family's experience with the flu:

"[We] made up [our] own remedies, like castor oil [and]
laxatives...everyone in our house grew weaker and weaker. Then my
brother Daniel died. My aunt saw the horse-drawn wagon coming down the
street. The strongest person in our family carried Daniel's body to
the sidewalk. Everyone was too weak to protest. There were no coffins
in the wagon, just bodies piled on top of each other. Daniel was two;
he was just a little boy. They put his body on the wagon and took him
away."

While the disease was raging in Philadelphia, some 50,000 people in
Pittsburgh were being afflicted. So were thousands of others
throughout the state.

Nearly 24,000 Pennsylvanians died during the first month of the
disease. By October 25th, after the first wave of the pandemic had
passed, it was estimated that 350,000 people had been struck with the
flu (about 150,000 of whom were Philadelphians).

When it comes to pandemics, there is no rational basis to believe that
the early years of the 21st century will be different than the past.
If a pandemic strikes, it will come to Pennsylvania.