COVID-19 Isn’t Guam’s First Epidemic

The ‘Spanish Flu’

Guam. But it is the first that has had such a powerful impact in a long time. The last epidemic that affected Guam and the world to a similar degree was the worldwide influenza pandemic in 1918-19. On Guam, the “Spanish Flu” – as the disease was called because the free Spanish press was the first to The very young and the elderly extensively report on it during World were especially vulnerable. War I – killed 858 people in two months.

CHamoru nurses in this photo dated between 1910 and 1920

Dr. Anne P. Hattori photo from the Smithsonian Collection