historian says patriot act like laws in WWI helped spread flu

The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History
by John M. Barry

In a radio interview, Barry said the WWI laws were MUCH more draconian than anything in the patriot act; you could be sent to prison for questioning anything the govt said. According to Barry, people heard the govt say the flu was nothing new as they watched their friends and family die from it. The result: people just didn't believe anything the govt said about anything.

He also said the flu probaly started in a small Kansas area; inductees were sent to Fort Riley, where the first historically noted outbreak occurred. (The Kansas area outbreak is apparently his discovery.)

(Barry also wrote the definitive book on the 1927 MS River flood that many here mentioned in relationship to Katrina.)

20s tho, a rebound from that.

A lot of soldiers at Montauk Long Island at a "rest camp" before being mustered out after the war helped spread it throughout New York and onwards, after the initial 1918 really bad year in the US.
I have read about the US outrbreak being concentrated at Fort Riley, Kansas in 1918. But 1919 was just as bad as it spread outwards. Church services were cancelled for months. People feared to ride the street cars and subways or to do business with the public. It was bad, bad, bad.