If Covid had hit in the 1980s

[wheretoyougonow]

I was a child/teenager in the 1980's an was thinking what challenges I would have faced as opposed to my children. So far I've come up with:

• Huge queues at the phone box to call your mates/boyfriend/girlfriend
• My dad reminding me how much it costs to make a call EVERY TIME I used the house phone
• No supermarket deliveries. I would have been dragged round the supermarket every week.
• No decent kids tv at the weekend bar Saturday morning.
• Waiting 6 million years (only slight exaggeration) for one computer game to load.
• No Amazon 😂😭😭😭😭

What have I missed?

They'd have had to find some way of opening libraries, it's where I got all my information when I was at school as we had no books at home.

28 days for delivery!

Hundreds of thousands of excess deaths.

I wouldn't have been dragged round the supermarket. I would have been left at home alone with my brother.

The newspapers loved their alarmist headlines even then, so there would have been a lot of worry, but obv not on this scale with SM.

Where would we have gotten our overload of information from ... Whether factual, fear mongering or just plain fake?

People may still have died but we wouldnt all have ended up crazy!

@MollysMummy2010

Puppymonkey thought I saw BBC have?

Yes they have - hence my wink!

Well my gran died aged 80 in 1991 and we all considered that she’d had a “good innings” and so honestly I think that there might not have been the will to keep 80 and 90 year olds safe to the detriment of the young. I think they would have just died.
Before the flu vaccine came in, flu regularly killed thousands in a normal (non pandemic flu) year, so although I think people would have thought it was awful, I honestly don’t think they would have had a nationwide lockdown. Maybe local ones.
Way less travel would probably have naturally “flattened the curve”, and I feel like people were kind of used to doing less anyway, so the closure of activities wouldn’t have bitten so hard.
Only one friend of mine had a mum who worked full time (as a nurse), so even if school had closed we’d have probably been ok.

Mrs Thatcher would not have dithered. Police would have property enforced restrictions.

A bit like during the miners’ strike then?

You could have got craft materials mail order from Fred Aldous.

‘I counted them out and I counted them in’ would be taken up and widely used by Covid compliance checkers.
School mask wearing would be enforced with liberal ruler on hands thrashings.
No email/wifi/mobile etc etc ! Working from home and online learning largely impossible.
Royal Mail massive (even more massive) increase in usage.
I think greater compliance with regulations than now (?)
Queues at banks for cash (pre cash machines and pre card payments (other than swipe credit card triple layer slips).
Queues daily for newspapers.
My undergrad degree would have been disrupted and both parents jobs seriously impacted. In fact I think it would have had massive effect on my family in ways which are different now but same for many now.
Lots staying up all night to make snatched expensive calls to family abroad. All huddled around land line.
Thatcher at the helm and (Keith joseph education)bloody hell that could be terrifying thought ??

Green shield stamps banned. An arsenal player campaigning for luncheon vouchers to be issued to vulnerable children.

I 100% believe there would not have been a lockdown in the 1980s, the only reason we've had one now is because of the advances in technology that mean people can work from home.

With no social media and general scaremongering I think it would have just been known as 'a bad bug doing the rounds.'

I was a kid in the 1980s and don't remember schools ever shutting, including when it snowed, or when the heating packed up and even once when they'd been a fire and half the school was cordoned off!!

Depending on when in the 80s, unemployment would potentially have sky rocketed.

We had a snow day a few times when we got snowed into our village. Our school was shut for a week after the Great Storm. It was brilliant, total freedom to explore the woods with all the trees down and no expectation of any work at all

I think parents would have really struggled to keep kids from going out playing with their friends as this was so normal back then. The entertainment so basic, four channels! But there was kids tv every day on bbc1 and itv. I think the national information films would be pretty dark, with a cloaked figure like the open water ones. Musically I think a lot more album tracks would have been played because the artists wouldn’t be able to record more music at home. No one could buy the singles. The 80’s music scene would have started to look very different. Same for TV, no zoom interviews, a lot of old comedies and black and white films repeated. More corner shops around so not having to go to a massive supermarket to get food. Lots of home made bread.

wowfudge

Depending on when in the 80s, unemployment would potentially have sky rocketed.“

I think a lot of people don’t know or maybe have forgotten how grim much of the 80s were. A pandemic would just about have finished us off.

denise exactly.

I remember going to London and being trapped due to an IRA alert (they put one out for several stations, only one had a minor explosion others nothing at all) and seeing people sleeping rough. Huge numbers of people, everywhere. All considered to just be lazy.

My foster mum died at 52 from cancer she had for five years. I wasn't allowed to mourn her death, she wasn't a 'proper mum'. I spent many years being told I was to apologise to my 'real mum' for being so upset and not trying hard enough to be a real daughter. I reported abuse once only for the person to ask what did I expect when I didn't love my parents enough. My foster mum wasn't allowed at school events. I wasn't allowed to discuss her with other children. I was told by a therapist that in "those days" proper checks weren't done and only child abusers would foster a kid no one else wanted (untrue to say the least). I wasn't baptised so was forced to sit in a corner of church to the wall with another child who also wasn't baptised, we were known by all (teachers and children) as the Devils children. I was repeatedly hit by a ruler by teachers for being left handed - another indicator of being the Devils child. I wasn't allowed to do the training for the 11+ as I was too thick to achieve anything in life (I still struggle with the loss of my foster mum decades later and the way it was treated by everyone, but it's nothing compared to how I felt then). I had a friend who would now be recognised as having a learning disability who was also refused help on the grounds of being thick. The thick labels followed us to secondary school, I got a higher grade than expected and got accused of cheating!

It wasn't all bad, but many many things have certainly improved since then.

Sorry, I meant "it wasn't all bad and many, many things have improved since then but that doesn't mean it was all good either".

Since China was a communist country then, surely it's doubtful that it would have left that country or even that we would have heard about it happening there?

@VienneseWhirligig

My parents might have moved with the times and bought a VCR - instead of waiting till the 90s

Can you imagine an 80s pandemic mix tape? What would be on it?

They could call it "Now thats what I call covid (19) "

I think we had more backbone back then and wouldn’t have allowed the government to herd us all like sheep.

@Soutiner

I think we had more backbone back then and wouldn’t have allowed the government to herd us all like sheep.

I think the opposite - people were more inclined to just get on with it in the 80s, and do what needed to be done - rather than dreaming up dozens of reasons why they are a special case and the rules don't apply to them as people do now.

@Destinysdaughter

Since China was a communist country then, surely it's doubtful that it would have left that country or even that we would have heard about it happening there?

It probably would not have spread very far as the Chinese did not have the disposable income then to travel around the world.

Even the vague thought of the hypothetical public information films and the approach from MT is triggering uneasy thoughts for me!

Perhaps influenced by the AIDS point, for some reason I think there would have been major overtones of guilt and blame meted out at people who were not able to take the virus on the chin and not bother the medical profession if they caught it.