The lessons learned then led to the New Deal as a response to the crash of 1929, and that did include handouts.
Try charting the pandemic here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depression_of_1920–21#/media/F.... VS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu#/media/File:1918_s...
The point is that we learned from that and reacted differently in 1929.
The lessons learned then led to the New Deal as a response to the crash of 1929, and that did include handouts.