[Signed] “Percy A. Brown,
“Chairman of the Coöperation Committee.”
Reports to the Coöperation Committee on October 31 showed 709 new cases of influenza and 67 deaths theretofore unreported in forty-eight communities of Luzerne County—indicating a decrease in the number of new cases, but no decrease in the number of deaths.
On November 4 only seventy-three new cases in Wilkes-Barré were reported, and there were very gratifying indications that the scourge was subsiding in most parts of Luzerne County. It was estimated that 10,000 coal miners in the County were idle because of the “flu.”
A well-attended meeting of the General Committee was held in the auditorium of the Wilkes-Barré Chamber of Commerce in the evening of November 6, with Chairman Dougherty presiding and Hayden Williams as Secretary. The County Medical Inspector, in reporting on conditions in his District, stated that Berwick in Columbia County and Plains in Luzerne County were still having a serious time with the epidemic. Nanticoke, he said, had also been hard hit. He stated that in Newport Township, Luzerne County, 249 people had died from the influenza. He declared that, while conditions in general were improved, new cases and deaths would likely continue to occur during the next three or four weeks.
The County Medical Inspector took advantage of this occasion to declare that too much could not be said about the good work accomplished by the general organization in Luzerne County, which had been the salvation of the entire County. Without it the loss of life would have been considerably greater, and many communities would have felt the full force of the epidemic. He then read a communication from the Acting Commissioner of Health, which he had received a short time previously, in part as follows:
“Where churches and schools have been closed during the epidemic of influenza, great care should be practised at the time of removing restrictions. Many children have been kept completely out of danger during this dangerous period, and to open too soon and run the chance of bringing them into contact with persons who have recently recovered, and who may perhaps be carriers, may again bring fresh outbreaks of the disease, particularly among school children.
“Then, too, thousands of public, private and parochial school teachers have been actively engaged in nursing, and these teachers should have a few days of rest—preferably a week—and ought to be absent from work at the bedsides of the sick for that period of time before returning to the schools or to crowded services.
“I would urge that you take these things into consideration, and in conference with the School Boards arrange for resuming sessions, so far as possible, when two-thirds of the children in any school district are ready to return from homes where no one has suffered with influenza for a period of seven days. Where possible, medical or nursing supervision would be advisable—especially for a few days after opening the schools.
“I would suggest that, so far as practicable, the resumption of school work should take place about midweek, and of Churches and Sunday Schools on the Sunday following. This will bring children gradually together, and will avoid the overcrowding apt to occur in Sunday Schools if these schools were first opened. It is not necessary to tell you that fifty per cent. of the Sunday Schools are conducted in buildings not as well ventilated as are the public schools.”