URI_Research_Magazine_Momentum_Fall_2020_Melissa-McCarthy

Crises like the COVID-19 pandemic are often said to be equalizers, as everyone has some risk of being affected. In reality, however, people are impacted by the virus in vastly different ways based on socio- economic demographics such as race, sex, finances, employment, and geographic location. To understand the ongoing impacts of the pandemic and response efforts, on people’s lives and public policy, requires diverse sources of data and quick adaptation. Researchers at the University of Rhode Island’s (URI) departments of History, Economics, and Political Science are up to the task. DON’T DISCOUNT HISTORY As Catherine DeCesare, senior lecturer in the URI History department, worked to transition her spring 2020 History of Rhode Island class online, she saw opportunity in the midst of crisis. DeCesare expanded her course material on the 1918 flu pandemic to explore COVID-19 through the lens of the past. “I wanted my students to be able to see analogues between the past and what they’re experiencing today,” said DeCesare. As with the COVID-19 pandemic, the H1N1 flu virus behind the 1918 pandemic spread globally, resulting in an estimated 675,000 deaths in the United States alone. DeCesare said that similar to today, handwashing, wearing masks, keeping hands away from the face, and discouraging large gatherings were all common practices to prevent the spread of disease. Concerns about the pandemic even caused URI to delay the beginning of the 1918 fall semester. DeCesare described the national response in 1918 as sporadic due to World War I. “The public health crisis was pushed aside because all efforts were directed at winning the war,” she said. “The impacts of delayed response were devastating. More people died in Providence due to the pandemic than Rhode Island soldiers died as a result of World War I.” DeCesare plans to build on her current 1918 pandemic research, to continue to place the current crisis within historical context and to thereby inform current approaches and

Archive photo of patients during the 1918 flu pandemic.

FALL | 2020 Page 55