On Oct. 7, 1918, U. S. Surgeon General notified state health officers they should consider enacting social distancing measures to prevent spread of influenza.

The messages were mixed, however. On the one hand, local newspapers reported on United States Surgeon-General Rupert Blue’s survey results, which found that several cities and military camps were in the midst of serious epidemics. On the other hand, the United States Public Health Service told residents that the current form of influenza circulating was “nothing but an aggravated form of the old-fashioned grip,” and was not especially dangerous unless the victim contracted pneumonia.