Hypothetical question: 1918 influenza pandemic

[Sarushka]

A note to mods: I'd post this in Having Fun, as it's purely hypothetical, but I doubt very much whether the folks who congregate there would pay it much mind. If there's a more appropriate place for this question to receive some serious thought, please move it. 
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Does anyone know if the 1918-19 influenza pandemic hit the Ural mountain area of Russia in general, and Ekaterinburg in particular? I find it interesting to speculate whether the IF would have been ravaged by influenza in 1918  if they hadn't been executed. Even if the Whites had rescued them, they'd have been as susceptible to the diesase as anyone else -- if not more so, due to their sheltered existance.

It would further seem to me that if influenza was raging in the Urals in late 1918 as it was in the rest of the world, it would put a significant dent in most survival theories. In fact, during that particular outbreak, the demographic most likely to die of influenza the world over were young adults; the age group of 20-24 had the second highest mortality rate. The odds of a young person at that time survivng both an execution AND a pandemic seem pretty darn slim to me...

[Ra-Ra-Rasputin]

I can't find any information specific to the Ural region, but suffice to say that if 1/5 of the world's population were affected by the flu, it pretty much follows that the Urals could not have been an isolated outpost, completely unaffected.  In one source (http://virus.stanford.edu/uda/), it notes that the flu was spread through shipping/trade routes; Ekaterinburg was and still is a large town, important to the Ural region.  I believe Ekaterinburg is the administrative centre of its district, and it is and was a big station on the Trans Siberian railway, which lots of people would have passed through on their way into and out of Moscow, not to mention soldiers travelling around to fight in the Civil War.  Therefore, in a large town such as Ekaterinburg, with people from all different areas coming through it on a daily basis on their travels, I am sure flu would have affected at least some of its residents.

Young people were amongst the worst affected, and if the illness had have hit the Imperial Family, especially considering their weakened mental and physical state due to lengthy imprisonment, it seems likely that they would have died from it.  The flu killed around 20million people worldwide, so would the IF have been spared, if they had caught it? I doubt it.  Illnesses don't make concessions for royalty, and especially not former royalty.

Though, if we're talking purely hypothetically, if the IF had still been imprisoned at this time, perhaps their imprisonment would, ironically, have saved them from falling prey? They were only allowed limited contact with outsiders and rarely went outside into the fresh air.  Would they have had the opportunity to catch the virus in the first place, I wonder?

Interesting question, Sarah.

Rachel
xx

[Lemur]

That is interesting! Also typhus was very bad in the region at that time. Sverdlov himself was said by some accounts to have died from it (while others claim he was executed) If they had stayed in the house, they still could have caught it from those passing in and out. If they had escaped and were running around free they may have caught it too. I know we'll never know, but wouldn't it be tragic if they had survived and then died of the disease? It's like the book "Romanov Prophecy" where they have Alexei and Anastasia getting away, but she died of pneumonia anyway. What's the point? It was a fictional story, they could have done anything with it.

[Sarushka]

Though, if we're talking purely hypothetically, if the IF had still been imprisoned at this time, perhaps their imprisonment would, ironically, have saved them from falling prey? They were only allowed limited contact with outsiders and rarely went outside into the fresh air.  Would they have had the opportunity to catch the virus in the first place, I wonder?

That would likely depend on the movement of the guards in and out of the house, and their proximity to the IF. Influenza is easily spread by the airborne virus when infected people cough, sneeze or spit. If the guards were able to mix with the public, I think it's entirely possible that the IF would have been in significant danger of catching the disease, even in captivity.

Incidentally, the book that sparked my question is The Great Influenza, by John M Barry. It goes into the history of medicine, the unique (and creepy) characteristics of the influenza virus in general, and the particulars of what made the 1918 strain so virulent.

[James1941]

The pandemic didn't really become serious until late 1918 and early 1919. If it had hit Ekaterinburg it wouldn't have mattered as the family was dead. If they had been rescued they would have been quickly taken east and might not even have been in Russia.
I think one reason there is not a lot of information about its effect in Russia  is that during that time the civil war was raging, and officials who might have in more peaceful times recorded the statistics on the flu deaths had more important things to worry about. The dead were piling up from war, typhus, famine and a whole lot of other causes.

[Sarushka]

The pandemic didn't really become serious until late 1918 and early 1919. If it had hit Ekaterinburg it wouldn't have mattered as the family was dead.

Of course, but as I said, I'm interested in the what-if. I asked a similar question on another forum -- If Anne Frank and her family hadn't been arrested in August of 1944, would they have survived Holland's notorious Hunger Winter? In both cases, people sigh wistfully over the if-onlys (in the case of the Romanovs, if only the Whites got there sooner; in the case of the Franks, if only they hadn't been betrayed)  but often fail to consider later circumstances that were just as threatening as their actual fate.

I think one reason there is not a lot of information about its effect in Russia  is that during that time the civil war was raging, and officials who might have in more peaceful times recorded the statistics on the flu deaths had more important things to worry about. The dead were piling up from war, typhus, famine and a whole lot of other causes.

I think that's entirely possible. But if influenza hit Russia with the same intensity that it hit the rest of the world, a tremendous lot of dead would have piled up. In wartime, disease always claims more lives than battle, and influenza exacerbated that phenomenon. Elsewhere in the world, influenza was forcing itself into the "important things to worry about" catagory. The influenza dead in Philadephia alone overflowed the hospitals, morgues, and cemetaries, until it  outranked every other cause of death combined. If the same thing happened in Russia, it must have been noticed, but I agree that given the circumstances at the time, many people would not have had the opportunity to record their observations.

[James1941]

I also love to engage in "what if" questions. I probably didn't make my post as clear as I should have. Let's do the what if. The flu epidemic sweeps across Siberia and finally gets to Ekaterinburg. My contention is that it would have mattered little to the imperial family as they were dead by July, 1918, before the flu could have had any effect on them personally. Now, what if, they had been rescued. My contention is that the family would have been quickly moved eastward, probably to Vladivostok, and then from there to somewhere. So the flu in Siberia probably wouldn't have affected them either. They may well have caught it along the route of their journey, or at whatever place they ended up. That is the what if. Now, what if, not all the family had been killed, but, as some posters on this forum maintain, one or two had survived the killing and been taken away to an unknown hiding place or rescued by persons unknown outside Ekaterinburg. Would the flu epidemic have effected them then?
Possibly. It may even have killed these survivors and that is why they never turned up alive anywhere. This is a possible scenario. The combination of their wounds and the flu might have been a killer.