To be very concerned that the UK is not yet closing schools or introducing other quarantining measures, despite clear evidence that in 1918, it reduced total deaths by as much as 50% in cities that

[effingterrified]

The 1918-19 Spanish flu pandemic infected a third of the planet’s population and killed an estimated 50 million people. The number of Americans who died of the Spanish flu was greater than the number of Americans killed in both World Wars. However, not all US cities suffered as badly as others. Research published in 2007 (at a time of heightened interest due to the avian flu outbreak) explored how cities across the US had responded in 1918, and the impacts this had had on mortality rates.

St Louis and Philadelphia provide good examples of how different approaches to public health led to radically differing outcomes. In Philadelphia, where the disease struck in September, authorities were slow to realise the threat posed by the virus, and allowed large public gatherings, including a citywide parade, involving 200,000 people in support of a World War I loan drive, to take place as planned. In four months, more than 12,000 Philadelphians died, an excess death rate of 719 people for every 100,000 inhabitants
.
In St Louis, on the other hand, two weeks before Philadelphia officials began to react, the highly-experienced Health Commissioner, Dr. Max Starkloff, insisted that the city cancel all public gatherings, from football games to Halloween parties, close all schools for ten weeks, and even station police officers in department stores to keep people from lingering. St Louis made the mistake of reacting to an initial fall in cases by lifting controls, leading to a second wave of the illness; however controls were immediately reinstituted.

Excess deaths in St. Louis were 347 per 100,000 people, LESS THAN HALF the rate in Philadelphia. Early action appeared to have saved thousands of lives.

The 2007 studies used mathematical models to show that such large differences in death rates could be explained by the ways the cities carried out prevention measures, especially in their timing. Cities that instituted quarantine, closing schools and banning public gatherings and other such procedures early in the epidemic, had peak death rates 30 percent to 50 percent lower than those that did not.

A study examining the course of the epidemic in 23 cities across the US found that San Francisco, St. Louis, Milwaukee and Kansas City, Mo., had the most effective prevention programs, and time was of the essence. If restrictions were introduced too late or lifted too early, success rates declined substantially.

Not sure. It seems soon to me to do that. There are massive costs to closing schools.

Can you get this moved to the coronavirus topic? Also YABU.

Here is a nice graph showing the difference in mortality rates between taking early action...and not:

twitter.com/florian_krammer/status/1235761684431724550

roses - didn't know there was a separate topic, sorry.

Here is another thread, from a Yale professor, making the point that the earlier that schools were closed (ideally even in advance of outbreaks) the lower the number of excess deaths in 43 US cities during the 1918 Influenza pandemic.

twitter.com/NAChristakis/status/1235204448101830656

And here is why this matters even more now, in 2020, when we have far better medical care available for those suffering, even the absence of a cure or vaccine.

twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/status/1235865328074153986/photo/1

We need to space out the numbers of people down with this at any one time, as we simply do not have sufficient health resources if nearly everyone goes down with this within a few weeks.

Yabu to post your shite in aibu when there is a corona virus topic.

Also, if you want to make comparisons to Spanish flu you should at least have a rudimentary grasp of how it started and how it eventually had such a high mortality rate.

I think you are completely right.

But you wont get public support for closures. Most people think it’s a big deal about nothing

Oh ffs. How on earth do you think you can compare flu in 1918 to Coronavirus in 2020? I really do despair.

Yanbu. Phe advice at the moment is that unless someone is showing symptoms they are not contagious. This contradicts most articles I’ve read which suggest some people (especially children) would only have mild or no symptoms but could still be shedding virus. My friends school have had kids attend who had contact with a known case and they haven’t even closed the school.

didn't know there was a separate topic, sorry

Well you do now but you're still banging on here. Have you reported your post or asked @mnhq to move it?

Barbie222 - there are massive costs to closing schools.

There are also massive costs to hundreds of thousands of deaths occurring within a short time, which is what is highly likely to occur if the outbreak is not managed to delay occurrences so that not everyone goes down with coronavirus within a few a few weeks, as the NHS is stretched as it is, and there is simply no way it could cope with a disease where at least around 20% of sufferers need to be in hospital and around 5% in intensive care.

We do not have that kind of capacity in the NHS, or anything like it.

Maybe you're not bothered as you're young and fit and figure it won't affect you. Do you not have any elderly/sick relatives or friends who you would be concerned about though?

TrainspottingWelsh - you're welcome to disagree but there is no need to be so rude. I'm asthmatic, so this is actually a matter of life and death to me.

I am well aware of how Spanish flu started.

If you disagree with the conclusions of the two 2007 studies, please explain why and how, rather than just posting ad hominems.

But when will the closures stop? A week, month, year? If all clear in 2 weeks of self isolation, then a child's brother comes back from a very affected area, do we close schools againI? I don't know the answer to my own questions!

I don't think yabu in your comparisons but advancement in medicine make this very likely to be controlled in this country as opposed to the SF which was made more virulent by the weak state people were in after a long war

Do you even have any understanding of the economic and social effects of the measures you're proposing? I imagine the answer is no.

Why are people are being such dicks

I thought kids weren't a high risk group for Corona virus? I thought it was over 65s and co morbitities?

tiredanddangerous - please explain why you think it is impossible to compare quarantine measures used against an infectious disease in the past.

Noone is saying the two diseases are identical.

That does not mean that infection control measures which have been shown to have been effective in one cannot be successfully applied in the other.

Or what other suggestions do you have to mitigate the situation, given that there is no cure yet and a vaccine is many months off?

ilovesooty - do you have any understanding of the economic and social effects of doing nothing?

I imagine the answer is no.

I think you're being ridiculous.

Children are not a high risk group, in fact their symptoms are the most mild. It's a MASSIVE overreaction at this point, OP.

Spanish flu happened pre antibiotics so many more would have died of pneumonia (which is the main reason why people die of flu) than would do in a modern day pandemic

I think we should be doing more to prevent spread now. It feels like the government don’t care about old people dying as long as the economy isn’t too badly effected.

The kids are not high risk. But they pass it onto their granny and grandpa who are.

Who is going to be looking after these elderly people if all the schools are shut and the nurses are at home looking after their children?