The tumultuous year of 1919 flashed by in the blink of an eye. Its theme was—pandemic, pandemic, pandemic, followed by endless speculation over the causes and consequences of the "American Great Flu"!
The Wilson government did not simply sit back and wait for death. So what if its overseas assets were lost? So what if it suffered losses on its international debts? Those things could never be recovered anyway!
The most important thing was guiding public opinion. As long as they could steer this great flu away from the United States government, it would be a victory!
Thus, all kinds of theories began circulating among the public, such as:
1. The accident theory: A leak at a Texas chemical plant happened to coincide with an influenza outbreak, and an accidental combination of viruses triggered this great flu; (This was the professional explanation given by the United States National Academy of Sciences.)
2. The conspiracy theory: Some ambitious individual had been conducting secret research at the Texas chemical plant when an accident inadvertently occurred, causing the virus to leak; (The most widely circulated popular theory.)
3. The coincidence-plus-conspiracy theory: The influenza virus and the chemical plant leak had merely collided by chance, only to be exploited afterward by anti-American forces in Europe; (Publicly promoted by the United States government.)
4. The framing theory: The influenza virus had been artificially created, but not by the United States government. It had been released deliberately in America by the government's enemies, intending to sow chaos in the United States. Unexpectedly, the virus mutated and triggered the worldwide American Great Flu;
5. The science-fiction theory: A prelude to an alien invasion of Earth;
6. The ancient-virus theory: The N1 Virus had lain dormant within fossils, which American soldiers had mistaken for ordinary stones and used