To ask why The Asian Flu pandemic in 1968/69 didn't cause the world to shut down?

[Whatsthis1515]

I have been reading about the Asian Flu pandemic in 1968-69, which was also a novel virus, and was surprised to see that there wasn't a lock down etc. Over a million people died of it globally.

I can't help but wonder if the reason the world is in lockdown with covid 19 is because of the media/social media and the internet. It causes mass panic.

I am wondering what everyone else's thoughts are?

I am not a conspiracy theorist btw, but I am wondering why it's so different this time. Being a human being is risky, and I struggle to understand why we have reacted so differently this time and am genuinely interested in if it because of how freely we can access media to panic us and the governments world wide have had to react to that?

I think there was also a strain of flu in 2004 where 17,000 in the UK died. I wasn't even aware of it at the time, yet that's a huge number of people.

@eaglejulesk I think you need to take a good look at just what is happening around the world

lol.

www.un.org/millenniumgoals/2015_MDG_Report/pdf/MDG%202015%20rev%20(July%201).pdf

Please could you share a metric that shows that quality of life, access to healthcare, and respect for human rights have stayed the same or decreased on a global level over the last 60 years?

I'm not from the UK, and nor do I live in the UK. I'm from a developing nation. My mother remembers a time when they isolated from the family on the next farm because the family was infected with diphtheria. All seven children died, and then everyone got on with it. Not because they were heartless, but because death was accepted, and life was expected to be short. Health policy in my country was aligned to the same expectation - that is no longer the case. Because the world has changed. That's a good thing.

And the death rate we are seeing is lower because of the response,.without it it would have been much worse.

@Whatsthis1515
Are you working for the Chinese Govt by any chance trying to spread fake news and influence us against our own govts?

Factfulness! I was trying to think of this book when reading different thoughts on whether life is getting better. I bought it for DP and DS2 but have not yet read it myself, but from various reviews and conversations, the book points out that world literacy rates are the highest they have ever been and are rising and vaccination levels are also increasing. Poverty levels are falling, not fast enough but people are getting lifted out of poverty. All is not perfect, far from it, but by many indicators, life is getting better across the world. I don't intend to be complacent, but sometimes there is brighter news than we realise.

people throughout all time have valued human life, especially when enjoying gladiatorial combat to the death, attending public executions as a form of entertainment, and having picnics during lynchings

Those weren’t very common occurrences in 1968 or at least not where I lived.

I remember it. It killed over 100,000 here in the US out of a (then) population of 200 million.

I think the reason there wasn't a lockdown was because people simply weren't as 'mobile' then as we are now so disease didn't spread as fast or as far.

Air travel was still very expensive and out of the reach of your 'average' family, so there just wasn't the massive amount of people flying here and there spreading it internationally or from one end of a country to the other.

I think people also tended to stay more 'local' back then, too. Families tended to stay in the same general geographical area so diseases were rather 'limited' in their ability to spread from area to area.

But realistically is it 'mass panic'? Or is just informing the population there's a novel virus that nobody yet has a vaccine for, can likely kill older people, immune compromised, and the healthy who don't know they have an underlying condition. Plus the many others because it's not been given a chance to run amock due to lockdown? There's no much good saying '99% will be fine!', when nobody actually really knows? I've worked since the outbreak, but I feel less 'panicked' knowing my parents, immune compromised family are isolating. Would I feel more panicked helping to keep the economy ticking over whilst worrying they're an exposed part of the '1%'? I'm bloody sure I would!... I fully believe the strategies have been put in place to keep things 'ticking over', versus everyone completely freaking out and widespead looting and society. breaking down taking place instead.

The1968 Pandemic wascaused by an influenza A (H3N2) virus.It is suspected that this virus evolved from the strain of influenza that caused the 1957 pandemic.People who had been exposed to the 1957 virus apparently retained immune protection against the 1968 virus.

...So it wasn't a totally novel virus in 1968; some people had some level of immunity. The virus was deadlier than the 1957 virus and killed between one and four million people globally in just over a year.

Source:
www.britannica.com/event/Hong-Kong-flu-of-1968

I was Nursing in London in 1968,the Hong Kong flu was horrific.

It killed 80,000 here in the U.K.,mind boggling.

Eyam plague, 1666.

We were actually around 50 years ago? People were just as upset as they are now the young person died. It wasn't "accepted" at all.

I didn't say people weren't devastated at the loss of a loved one, r that they didn't grieve, chook - I said it was "accepted". People knew that if someone caught a serious illness, there was a good chance they'd die. There wasn't the expectation that medical science could and would fix everything.

Of course families were heartbroken - losing someone you love is never easy - but people were more pragmatic about things.

people throughout all time have valued human life, especially when enjoying gladiatorial combat to the death

*Those weren’t very common occurrences in 1968 or at least not where I lived.^

We still have them here - they're called "Hen Nights"

My mother remembers a time when they isolated from the family on the next farm because the family was infected with diphtheria. All seven children died, and then everyone got on with it. Not because they were heartless, but because death was accepted, and life was expected to be short.

Thank you rbvy- this is the point I was trying to get across.

People didn't accept death because they "didn't care" - they accepted it because they realised it was a part of life as it was then.

Of course they cared! If you lose your parents, you can't replace them; every child is precious to you, whether you have 1 or 10. But sadly, to lose someone wasn't unusual. Nowadays we live in a very protected environment (at least here in the 1st world). Fifty years ago in the UK, for instance, the infant mortality rate was around 18/1,000 live births (and there were fewer live births). By 2017, this had fallen to 4 - and more live births, including very premature babies.

It's a huge difference - and that's just one area of medicine.

www.closer.ac.uk/data/infant-mortality/

My grandad died of kidney failure from it. He literally had never even had a cold before, was in his 50s and a military man. I was 5 at the time, as I remember my Mum picking me up from school after the funeral. It was a swift killer.

I think it is very difficult to compare a world of 50 odd years ago to now TBH. As others have said ,smaller population ,less opportunities to travel and so on .Reading about Viruses ATM and Polio makes interesting but sad reading .Huge epidemic in the 1950s .At one point 66% of US children in hospital at any one point due to Polio .A vaccine was finally discovered in 1960 .Now virtually eradicated .

The difficulty is we have no way of knowing what the death toll would be without those measures. We know prior to lockdown our closest and probably most comparable neighbour who was in lockdown (ireland) had half our death rate (taking population into account). All we can say is our current and that its despite death toll.

It reminds me of when my last boss downsized by removing a team designed to deal with a rare incidence, not realising the reason it was rare was due to the work this team was putting in. You can guess what happened when they left.

Yes there are years as someone posted where the "normal" flu kills a lot of people, however thats with it left to run its course, and in flu season. We are currently in may, and flu season will still hit us in the winter as it normally does (hence why the timing was inportant). Other strains of flu will still kill thousands this winter (although if we are still socially distanced and using ppe then theres a chance that number will drop beyond the norm). Theres talk about our annual death rate looking different this year, but we must also remember that ppe, social distancing and isolation will impact all kinds of infection rates and everything from road fatalities, drug deaths to potential suicide increases.

Its all a balancing act, we could reduce flu numbers if we really tried but its not deemed worth it for carers to wear ppe etc, it was deemed worth it this time.

What some people are missing is that surviving Covid19 doesnt mean unaffected by it. Many people have read 'mild, flu-like symptoms' and havent registered that this is mild in a medical sense ie not needing hospitalisation. Mild can still mean being in bed for a week and then still feeling unwell for weeks after.

We have learned an enormous amount about treating people who are seriously ill over the last 50 years. All those patients in intensive care beds are wearing pressure socks to reduce the risk of DVT. Much improved ability to monitor patients continuously.

How many of the patients who have survived COVID19 simply wouldnt have survived 50 years ago?

there is suggestion that handwashing may also make a difference/decrease to the next flu epidemic (BBC news interview)