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.

It wasn't something that we expected to happen at all

This.

I only know 1 child through all my schooling who died. And that was in very unusual circumstances from a tropical disease.

It was not like Victorian times.

@madmum100
You what?! I said I support lockdown (to some degree anyway!). Please enlighten me as to what fake news I have spread?
I am genuinely interested.

Ignoring the above, thanks so much everyone for such an interesting discussion

I find it interesting that young people furiously research statistics for the time and quote them at us to prove their arguments, completely disregarding any factors influencing the statistics - whereas those who were actually there tell a different story! I would never lecture someone about life in the 1940s as I wasn't there and reading statistics for the time is NOT a substitute. Real life wins every time.

It's astounding how people who weren't around at the time feel so superior (and not just on this thread).

eaglejulesk - it’s astounding how older people patronisingly think middle aged people are young and don’t have parents who were doctors and nurses in the 1960s, had children in the 1960s and who undoubtedly remember it just as well as you and are happy to talk about it.

As for the past, in response to death, people used to have an awful lot more children and there used to be a much higher proportion of orphans, including in the 1960s

It’s astounding how people post a load of old bollocks like this and then try to pretend they haven’t.

And I wouldn’t presume to lecture people about life in the 1970s, even though I was there, as my memories of it are just my memories, not everyone else’s. I would be just one voice. And I wouldn’t be so arrogant as to presume that someone younger than me could tell me nothing about it, just because I was alive at the time.

Real life wins every time

Not necessarily. Bubbles and all that.

But I do think that most people who have knowledge of the 1960s and 1970s would be very surprised to think that "people had lots of children and that childhood death was relatively common". (I might be paraphrasing)

I don’t think it is at all surprising that families had more children on average in the 1960s than now, nor that there was more infant mortality, nor that more mothers died in childbirth. It’s a well known fact all these things steadily decreased throughout the 20th century and that life expectancy steadily increased. The 1960s were certainly nothing remotely like the Victorian era, or even like the 1950s, but it was still a different world - even more so in many other countries than in the UK, and this is a global pandemic, not a local epidemic.

Walkaround

Oh dear, another one of the "my mother/father said" brigade. So you wouldn't presume to lecture people about the 1970s, even though you were there, but will lecture them about the 1960s based on your parents remembrances. Interesting.

Surely even doctors and nurses memories are based on the hospitals/regions/countries they worked in and therefore they cannot speak for "the world".

I didn't say younger people aren't capable of rational discussion (although I still say if you weren't there you can't really know what it was like), I was talking about those who trot out statistics and think that makes them an expert. I have worked with people like that - no experience of real life, just what they glean from research, and it is NOT the same thing.

people used to have an awful lot more children and there used to be a much higher proportion of orphans, including in the 1960s

The only people I knew who had several children were Catholics. You do realise birth control wasn't invented yesterday?

You do realise you are only talking about the UK, eaglejulesk?

The OP, on the other hand, was about the world shutting down.

I guess you hated history teachers, eaglejulesk.

People were more used to living with illness and there weren't vaccines for everything. You had to live with illnesses like measles and not long before that, polio. Therefore I think there was more of a fatalistic view - if you got flu you'd either survive or you wouldn't.

And we have more people living now with complex health needs - either because of advanced age, or because they have a condition which they would not have survived in the late 60s.

The only people I knew who had several children were Catholics

People did have large(r) families, my DH is one of four and he wasn't from a Catholic family.

Btw, eaglesjulesk, yes I would be more inclined to pass on information from people who were doctors and nurses at the time of the 1968 flu pandemic when discussing the effect of advances in medicine, than I would be inclined to pass on my personal memories of the 1970s.

yes I would be more inclined to pass on information from people who were doctors and nurses at the time of the 1968 flu pandemic when discussing the effect of advances in medicine, than I would be inclined to pass on my personal memories of the 1970s.

Aren't we discussing people's attitudes to life and death at the time versus now as that is surely the most relevant to this discussion rather than what advance have been made in medicine? If that's the case I think those who are there with know more than those who weren't.

People were more used to living with illness and there weren't vaccines for everything. You had to live with illnesses like measles and not long before that, polio. Therefore I think there was more of a fatalistic view - if you got flu you'd either survive or you wouldn't.

No, there wasn't a more fatalistic view. The difference between how people are behaving now versus 1968 is due to the fact that it is a much more infectious and deadly virus.

mrpumblechook - we are talking at cross purposes if you think I am trying to claim any knowledge of how people felt about life and reacted to death in the 1960s. The whole point I was making is that it is a bit silly to discuss different attitudes now and then, and whether anyone would have needed, accepted or wanted having a lockdown imposed on them, then, because it was a different world in too many ways and the effects of a pandemic then would not have been exactly the same as the effects of a pandemic now, however we responded to it. Or to quote myself from earlier: “So why anyone is trying to argue everyone reacted better to pandemics in the past, as though they actually had any choice and as though the implications were precisely the same, I’m not really sure.”

I only know 1 child through all my schooling who died. And that was in very unusual circumstances from a tropical disease.
Born in 62, knew probably 7 that died , 4 that got run over in traffic accidents, 2 of whom were same family but years apart and 3 boys with unknown heart defects
But my neighbour old Mr S died of flu in the 68 epidemic although i dont really remember a flu epidemic, but i remember my DM telling me Mr S died of flu.

My neighbour's baby died in the 69 epidemic. She came across to talk to my mum because she was worried about the baby and my mum tried to call the doctor out but he was reluctant to come because of being called out so much in the epidemic. By the time he finally came out it was to late and the baby had died. It certainly wasn't just accepted as a part of everyday life

Really?
What was different between 1968 and 2020?
52 years, half a century.
How about the rate of flights? The amount of people globe-trotting every single day, the distances they cover.
Tourism industry exploded during these 50 years.
Live expectancy also boomed.
I bet the number of restaurants, bars and social places boomed too.
As did the total population.

The biggest difference is the type of virus. 1968/9 flu wasn't a novel virus so some people had previous immunity. It also wasn't a Corona virus and didn't cause such unusual respiratory symptoms,.