"Will swine flu follow pattern of deadly 1918 pandemic?"

There are eerie similarities between this latest outbreak of swine flu and the 1918 Spanish flu – the most devastating flu in the last 100 years.

There’s the timing: Both started in late spring.

The age of the victims is roughly the same: Both viruses seem to target people between the ages of 20 and 40; not the very young and old, as is the case in the typical flu.

One more thing: In both cases, the flu is of the subtype H1N1.

When the 1918 flu first appeared in Kansas, during late spring, it was called the "three-day fever." People were symptomatic for three days, and then they recovered.

As spring turned to summer, the flu seemed to peter out.

Then, that fall, it came roaring back with a vengeance. Why or how is not known.[...]

The author of this really terrific piece is Susanne Rust, a reporter at the Milwaukee Sentinel Journal.

"Journal Sentinel reporters named Pulitzer Prize finalists"

Journal Sentinel reporters Susanne Rust and Meg Kissinger were honored as finalists Monday for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting for chronicling lax federal oversight of toxic chemicals.

David Barstow of The New York Times won the investigative Pulitzer for reporting on conflicts of interest among military analysts who help television networks cover the wars in Asia. Paul Pringle of the Los Angeles Times also was an investigative reporting finalist for exposing financial abuses by the head of California’s largest union. [...]