doctor sidney rosenblatt wrote, i have gone through hell with these weeks. all i have done is sign death certificates. which more than 650 deaths daily funerals could not keep up. churches were closed. for strawn carts travelled the streets, collecting the dead. many corpses, landed, and hastily dug trenches. ah, nothing was learned from the philadelphia disaster. the same week, new york posted the traditional columbus day parade, attended by the president himself. a great promoter of the event, woodrow wilson, was careful not to comment on the pandemic. the 2nd wave piqued to new york 15 days later, reaching a sad record of more than 5000 deaths in one week. no one was yet aware that the industrialized world had been plunged into the gravest health crisis in its history . it had soon claimed more victims than the war in autumn 1918. the virus redoubled in intensity from boston to bombay. rome to rio, its deadly variant, preached british india relatively spared by the 1st wave, became a charnel house in a land of 250000000 people. the virus was spoiled for c