Looking Back: How the Spanish Flu Impacted Cleveland

Churches, schools, libraries and theaters closed. No public weddings or funerals. Loitering in restaurants or taverns is prohibited. Those orders aren’t from 2020, but from Cleveland during the influenza pandemic of 1918-19. The Lexington (Ky.) Herald Leader recently published a story examining the similarities between today’s pandemic and the one that struck a century ago.

Case Western Reserve University research says the 1918-19 flu killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide. The estimated death toll for the U.S. was 675,000, and more than 4,400 in Cleveland. 3/31/2020