The virus caused uncontrollable haemorrhaging that filled the lungs of the victim. It was a struggle to breathe and they victims would experience severe coughing, and within a short period of time they would often drown in their own body fluids. "Perhaps no observation during the great influenza was more common than the familiar comment that the flu hit the rich and the poor alike. A certain consolation seemed to be afforded by the thought that the pestilence was democratic, even in so dreadful a sense, in its behaviour." However, in a study by the Department of Health in 1931 it was concluded that people living in an impoverished situation contracted the influenza more readily than those from a "well-to-do" environment. The mortality rate for those with the flu who were poor was also higher than rich people inflicted with the disease. .
.
The government used quarantines to try to stem the tide of the disease. Not only isolating individuals but completely cutting off travel to entire towns. No one was allowed to come or go for any reason to some towns in the prairies, Labrador and Quebec. Despite the best efforts of the government and volunteer organizations, the influenza continued on its unstoppable rampage.
In Regina, all church services, public meetings and all mass entertainments were banned to try to stop the spread of the disease. Schools were closed; movie theatres, pubs to libraries were shut down; only essential services were permitted to remain in full operation. In Alberta, businesses were forbidden to open before noon each day and had to close before four. In some areas even funerals were banned. Even parades celebrating the end of the war were supposed to be extinguished, but nothing could keep people in their houses when news came through that their soldiers were coming home. On one occasion on November 14th, 1918 in the town of Monessen, Pennsylvania, ten thousand people filled the streets to watch a parade celebrating the end of the war.
