Alternate Philippine History 1898 (Hiatus)

26 - The Spanish Flu

The third quarter of 1918 saw an unusual rise of flu cases along the area around the country's international ports, especially around the Port of Manila.

Although the Federal government got concerned, it wasn't enough to announce a nationwide emergency. They just opted to assist the affected cities in the treatment of the sick by allowing the cities to use their emergency funds to purchase medicines as they assumed the number of sick will go down in a couple of days or weeks.

It didn't end in weeks however, as the flu started to spread outside of the port cities to towns and villages connected by road and rail. Although the symptoms are mild, the quick spread alarmed the government enough to order an investigation if whether or not the country is experiencing a flu epidemic.

They also ordered the foreign affairs department to find out if this came from outside of the country so they could issue more stringent measures for anyone arriving to the country.

The government's response had been slow and the people had started to panic as unproven rumors of a deadly disease had spread throughout the country's major cities and towns, and their adjacent villages.
They tried to alleviate the people's concerns by stating that the virus isn't as deadly as the rumors stated. The number of deaths had been exaggerated as typically hundreds die every year in the country due to the flu, most of them being the sick and elderly, basically those with an already weakened immune system.

The statement about the flu, however, is rebutted by some of the country's best doctors. Even though the cases they have been observing are mild and healthy people recover quite quickly, news reports circulating in Spain suggested otherwise.

Since the start of spring, newspapers in Spain had been reporting of a flu epidemic in the country. Filipino doctors who have friends and connections in Madrid were informed and have noted similarities between what's happening in the country, and what had happened months ago in Spain.

The doctors urged the government to take measures now to prevent the further spread of the flu as it is evident that it has now reached the country's shores. They are saying that, since Spain and the Philippines are experiencing the same pattern with regards to the flu epidemic, it is likely the world is now at the early stages of a pandemic.

Even though experts have sounded the alarm on a potential global health crisis, the government took some time to heed the warnings, but still managed to put out an order to mandate the wearing of masks as many industries were severely affected due to many of their workers calling in sick, with some closing temporarily due to the lack of manpower.

Other measures implemented by the government are temporary closures of public venues like restaurants, bars, and even places of worship, although this was retracted due to opposition from the catholic church who reasoned that the people should be able to seek solace with God during dark times.

There were other measures proposed, but they were never implemented due to the severe effects it will have on the economy like a full lockdown of the country, or total closure of all international ports.

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With the Great War over news of severe outbreaks in many of the former warring nations begun spreading as wartime censorship is lifted. Unbeknownst to many soldiers going back to their home countries, they carried a more deadly strain that is believed to have emerged somewhere in Europe's front lines.

The Philippine government, who by this time had received the intelligence from their spies in Europe, had worked out measures to prevent infected individuals from entering the country.
This included ordering the police to patrol the country's ports, ordering drafted soldiers to patrol the country's shores, and requisitioning of private boats and small ships to help the navy patrol the country's maritime borders.

These measures allowed the Philippines to be among the few countries and territories to have managed keep the spread of the virus under control, albeit for a short while as complacency among the populace and government officials allowed the virus to once again spread. 

As the infection rate and death toll begun to go down in countries hit hard during the last four months of 1918, so did the fear of the disease in the Philippines. Being one of the countries least affected by the pandemic, it didn't take long before calls for lifting of restrictions came out, mostly from some of the larger cities near the ports.

Medical professionals, and state leaders warned against prematurely lifting restrictions as this could have disastrous consequences. The pandemic is not yet over and there is a high chance that what happened in other countries will happen in the Philippines if people aren't careful.

Even though the country had mitigated a worst case scenario in terms of public health, the restrictions put in place affected the economy due to lower imports and exports, and problems with logistics due to the sudden changes with demand and supply.
In order to resolve these issues, the federal government proposed a compromise to the economy to slowly restart while keeping in place some basic restrictions on port arrivals and the mandatory wearing of masks.

State governments who opposed this demanded that the proposal be put to a vote. They reasoned that if some states opened their ports and the virus once again gets in the country, their people will be be put at risk.

The motion is actually backed by some local governments in states in favor of lifting restrictions as they had been receiving frightening news about what's happening in other countries, especially the death toll within the last 3 months.

The Federal government accepted the demand and called for an emergency session with the state leaders. After almost a month of deliberations, all state governments unanimously agreed, mostly due to the constituents of the so called 'open' states pressuring their government to vote for the restrictions.

Aside from the continuation of restrictions, the state leaders also voted to increase budget of the armed forces to allow them to draft more people to patrol the shores, and also for the navy to rent out fishing boats to increase their night patrols along the nation's shorelines.

This move became the pre-requisite for the expansion of the Guardia Civil to include a sub-division composed of militias, civilians called for military service in times of emergencies.

As the terror of the Spanish flu ended, an estimated 15-50 million people had perished. Some estimates even count it at around 100 million making it the second deadliest pandemic in history. Very few places had been spared, with fewer more recording no deaths.

The Philippines, even though it managed to avoid the worst, still lost around 15,000 to 20,000 people or around .13% of the population after restrictions were lifted by mid 1922. Most experts many years later suspected that  the relative success of the restrictions made sure that much of the Philippine population didn't have some sort of immunity when the virus eventually came back.