- [Kristin] My focus has always been rural areas and some of that has to do with growing up in Nebraska.

My name is Dr.Kristin Watkins and I have a PhD in the history of infectious diseases and public health.

My expertise is the 1918 influenza pandemic, specifically in rural areas.

It was truly through transportation hubs and urban centers.

When you look at 1918, you have an installation of troops coming into Omaha and Lincoln.

You start to see those communities just having exponential death and you can really see it in the data.

Lincoln had 400 deaths in the month of October in 1918.

And to this day has never, ever had that many deaths in one month.

In 2020, you see Omaha and the Western part of the state start to get infections and then you see the culmination happen in Grand Island in the meat packing industry.

I mean, infections just rage.

[Kristin] The other thing we had in 1918 that people think we had in 2020 that we didn't have, was house arrest.

We truly had house arrest.

- I actually was able to find a placard from Fillmore County, Nebraska, that very plainly states, that this house is quarantined due to Spanish influenza and the fine is five to a hundred dollars.

In 1918.

[Kristin] A great story is Wayne State.

And at that time they were the teacher's college and the students recognized that to keep themselves healthy and to keep the community healthy, they had to self isolate.

So they did.

In the same way that we've created the social bubbles in COVID19 and it really worked.

So Santa Claus comes in on the train from Denver and he gets off the train and then of course, all the kids hear that Santa is coming and rush to the train.

And Santa proceeds to get arrested because he has broken the quarantine and gathered a large group.

They pulled his wig and they pulled his hat and of course everyone recognized the local businessperson but the kids didn't care.

They still believed it was Santa Claus and they got their pennies together and they went to the jail and they bailed him out.

And it's a really cute and funny story of, you know resilience, in particular children, children's resilience.

But we know if you can get them back together again they will be children, it's why they bring us such joy.

They will do the thing that makes something fun and wonderful in the midst of all this sadness.

Disease is natural influenza truly means influence of the winds and it comes in on winds.

We know it comes in, we know it's seasonal.

Now with influenza we've really normalized it.