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The COVID-19 pandemic may be unlike anything we’ve seen in our own lifetimes, but this isn’t Charleston’s first rodeo. From smallpox to yellow fever, contagious disease wrought devastation on the Holy City many times throughout its 350-year history.

In its early years especially, public health crises posed as big of a threat to the city as hurricanes and other natural disasters. According to local historians, a whopping 59 epidemics occurred between 1670 and 1775.

When the Spanish Flu pandemic reached South Carolina in 1918, it spread rapidly – particularly in urban areas where people were in much closer quarters. That year, 14,250 South Carolinians died from flu-related deaths. To put that in perspective: 289 flu deaths were reported across SC for the entirety of the 2017-2018 flu season.

The first protective measure that was taken required patients, along with the doctors + nurses who treated them, to quarantine for a minimum of five days before returning to work, school, etc. Starting to sound familiar?

People were encouraged to wear masks when out in public to prevent the spread of the illness through coughing or sneezing. As the number of cases increased, a mandatory shutdown was put in place that closed all churches, schools and theaters. Local authorities also discouraged public gatherings (in Charleston, people were banned from assembling in groups larger than 5) and urged local businesses to close their doors or restrict their hours. These closures, combined with the number of employees who were sick and unable to work, resulted in a major blow to the state economy.

Here in the Lowcountry, leaders offered up rations of whiskey for citizens during the epidemic, and many Charlestonians spent hours waiting in line to get their share. This hasn’t happened yet in 2020 – your move, Mayor Tecklenburg.

Meanwhile, the medical industry was booming. In Columbia, there were ~150 hospital beds in 1918, leading to the conversion of three buildings at the University of South Carolina into emergency hospitals to receive influenza patients. With so many men overseas due to WWI, this era brought more women and African Americans into the workforce.

As a result of the steps taken to slow the flu’s spread, contagion rates began to fall by December 1918 – even though the flu shot had not yet been developed. By early- to mid-1919, the mortality rate normalized, and in turn, so did society.

We know it will take some time to get things back to normal here in the Holy City, but when we look to the past and see how South Carolinians overcame such similar struggles, we know our future will be on the bright side of history.

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