17. The American public erased the flu from its collective memory
After the Spanish Flu returned in late 1919, and in early 2020, it vanished. In the United States and across Europe, it became associated with the horrors of the Great War, and much like that horrid conflict, largely forgotten. Both were later surpassed by yet another horrid war, which erased the name Great War and designated it as World War I. The lessons of the outbreak of 1918-20 faded as well. The need for isolation of the sick was never part of the American psyche, whether the illness was flu or the common cold. Throughout the United States, the idea of missing work due to either became anathema. It simply wasn’t done.
Staying home when ill, and thus protecting the public from the transmission of whatever illness one was suffering, was frowned upon by employers. Employees without the protection of medical time off, which became known as sick days, often could not afford to miss work, the financial penalties were too stiff. One aspect of the Spanish flu which has proven difficult to study was the number of people who transmitted the virus without falling ill, or fell ill with comparatively mild symptoms. From the 1930s on, nostrums which eased the symptoms of flu and colds encouraged people to go on about their daily business while clearly still contagious, a habit ingrained in American life in the 21st century.