Spanish Flu survivor has faint memories of pandemic

There is a Spanish Flu survivor in St Ann who is now experiencing a second pandemic in his lifetime, as COVID-19 continues to spread.

Arguments about the current COVID-19 pandemic invariably shift to the Spanish Flu of 1918 to 1919, which killed millions of people across the globe.

The Spanish Flu lasted from the spring of 1918 to the early part of the summer of 1919, infecting an estimated 50 million people, about a third of the world’s population at the time. It is estimated that death figures range from 17 million to 50 million, and possibly a lot more. It is considered one of the deadliest pandemics in history.

In what was then known as the British Caribbean, the flu killed over 30,000 people, many of the victims right here in Jamaica, which was said to be the first island affected.

On its editorial page of October 17, 1918, The Gleaner noted: “What has now made its appearance on the north side of this island is probably the Spanish Influenza, but we hope that only a mild form has manifested itself here. It has ‘downed’ many people in Montego Bay and Port Antonio. The hospital in the latter place is full, workers in various stores and businesses are incapacitated. Some deaths have taken place, and there may be more.”

The article went on to warn that the Spanish Flu “must not be neglected as ‘only a little cold’; we must not play with it. It can and will spread all over the island: we must rid ourselves of it as quickly as possible.”

We are unsure of the number of victims there were in Jamaica, but as there were victims, there were survivors, and one of them is 107-year-old Solomon Higgins of Epworth, St Ann.

WIT STILL INTACT

Higgins, born December 24, 1912, was seven by the time the pandemic subsided in 1918 and was one of several persons in St Ann who contracted the influenza. In a brief conversation with The Gleaner on Saturday, Higgins, with fading hearing, had vague memories of the pandemic even as certain things seemed stuck in his memory.

First, he never missed the opportunity to show that his wit was still intact.

“I’m not feeling too good, and I am not feeling too bad, just between,” he responded when asked how he was doing before explaining himself: “Yes, I remember but you know, I scarcely can tell you much now.”

As a child, Higgins would not have understood much of what was happening around him back then, but speaking of the little that he recalled, he said that several persons were sick at the same time that he was.

“It was a doctor from St Ann’s Bay that came up here. His name was Doctor Robb. That’s the man we get treatment from,” he disclosed.

He credited Dr Robb for treating him, and others who were ill, to full recovery. He cannot recall if there were any deaths in the community.

But Higgins, who preached regularly for more than17 years at the Methodist Church in Epworth, after a miraculous recovery from a mystery illness, believes that the current pandemic will not go away just so. Asked to compare the two pandemics, a century apart, he issued a warning.

COVID-19 WARNING

“Well you know, according to what I understand, worse is going to come, you know brother, according to scripture. If you read the book of Revelation it tells you much of what is going to come to this world.”

Higgins said he feels blessed having been able to survive the Spanish Flu and now being able to escape COVID-19.

“Yes, my brother. I have to give thanks to God. I put all my trust in Him and I have to be thankful, day by day. I give Him thanks for sparing my life up to now.”

Residents of Epworth, in the meantime, continue to follow protocol by taking the necessary steps to prevent the spread of the coronavirus disease to the community, according to Higgins’ daughter, Clarine.

She said that while there might not be a hundred per cent wearing of masks in the community, whenever someone ventures outside of the community, a mask is a must and social distancing is observed.