How did we used to deal with Pandemics?

[jasjas1973]

As well as the the one in 1918 that killed 50m to 100m people worldwide, we also had one in 1957 that killed 3m, 10,000 in the UK, 110k in the USA, another one in 1968 that killed 1m and again about 10k in UK.
We used to have around 65k extra deaths in the UK each and every winter, last year it was 23k additional deaths.

What did we do? i certainly don't remember any sort of lockdown at all in the late 60s and my mum, a nurse, never mentioned anything, just always warned me to stay in when i was ill and wash my hands!!!

Was the large scales deaths of the elderly/vulnerable just accepted?

More philosophical about death?

We didn't try and stamp anything out, we let it become endemic and only tonight are doing the very minimum.

The worst case scenario for this disease is not 10k or 20k- it's many hundreds of thousands.

Thats arguable, other studies say different..... average age of an italian CV death is 80yo with a heart or lung condition.

Yes, but at what point do you 'pull the plug?'. There will be so many out of work as of tonight with no income on the horizon, keeping companies open the last week will have at least offered a paycheck for some people to now fund basic supplies? The call for over 70s and folk with underlying health conditions was issued days ago and everyone was made well aware.

The problem now is we have built up a large cohort of the extremely old and vulnerable- and we are facing a horrible choice of either protecting them by wrecking our economy, and the future prospects of our young people, or letting up to a quarter of a million old folk die. And its just not politically acceptable to say these would be overdue deaths from the past two decades!
Even though in some cases we might just be saving them from Covid 19 so they can die of dementia a year later.

Yes.

What really worries me is that we go through all these measures to save the elderly and vulnerable - and then a few years from now, another illness like covid-19 emerges.

Now that we have have so many people who are alive despite very old age or significant underlying health weakness, due to modern medicine, it seems almost inevitable that a disease will come along fairly regularly that endangers their lives.

What do we do the next time this happens?

People died. We didn't cope.

We sang Ring O’ Roses.

Then we all fell down.

Like BabDoc, I caught Hong Kong Flu as a teenager. It was New Year's Eve 1968. Got on the bus for the 30 minute journey home from work feeling fine, then suddenly didn't feel fine. Got off the bus at my stop and could barely stagger home, where everyone was gathering for the celebrations. I didn't know what was wrong with me as I wasn't sneezing or coughing, just feeling completely awful and weird, like I wasn't properly in my body.

Can't remember afterwards really, must have stayed in bed for a few days (possibly with coughing etc by then) and then back to life as normal.

Yes LQ this is what the Imperial paper said CV would cause 20,000 deaths but not necessarily 20k extra deaths.

The Imperial paper estimated we’d have 250,000 deaths of we continued with the “mitigation” strategy (far more than the 10,000 you quoted for the 1958 flu outbreak)... The 20,000 is the figure for much more aggressive “suppression” measures currently being taken.

This pandemic is in the same league as the 1918 Spanish Flu... Surely you can see by looking at Italy how deadly this disease is. 600-800 deaths daily for last few days, and that with heavy suppression in place.

If we just kept calm and carried on, the death toll would almost certainly have reached many thousand each day.

The problem now is we have built up a large cohort of the extremely old and vulnerable- and we are facing a horrible choice of either protecting them by wrecking our economy, and the future prospects of our young people, or letting up to a quarter of a million old folk die

This idea that only old people die from this needs knocking on the head. Yes they are a lot more vulnerable, and if you’re an 80 yo man with underlying conditions it’s virtually as dangerous as the bubonic plague! However, if we had just isolated the old and vulnerable, and let it rip, many thousands of young people would have died (I believe a significant proportion of those on ventilators are under 40).

Serious secrecy about and denial of the 1918 flu (midst of war) allowed it to spread through the army and local populations. Infected armies beought it from one camp to another. Populations seriously undernourished after WW1, revolutions, famines, requisition - the weakened died. I know it is always said that Spanish flu targeted the strongest the most (cytokine storm) but it was these strongest who had been in close quarters at the front and were exhausted, broken, cold.
I am reading Pale Rider by Laura Spinney and every page so far is a shuddering realisation.

This idea that only old people die from this needs knocking on the head.

Absolutely

Thats arguable, other studies say different.

Which studies? I've not read any which say a worst case in the order you are suggesting.

I saw the underlying data to a model similar to the one which prompted the original discussion of riding out the infection with limited intervention. That model now looks hopelessly optimistic and had a worst reasonable case of 50k dead.

Every estimate I've seen since says 100-500k dead if we allow this to spread unchecked.

770k people die from hiv/aids PA

Don't know if it's classified as pandemic but recent enough to know how it was handled.

600-800 deaths daily for last few days, and that with heavy suppression in place.

Indeed. Italy's lockdown is stricter than the one we just introduced. It has been in place in the North for much longer than ours will have been when we reach their death rate.

IMHO based on bugger all:
We're not all being asked to take these stringent measures to preserve the life of old folk.
In fact, from the Goverment's point of view, it could be really beneficial to have a mass cull of old folk.
Think of the financial savings to be made on the care bill.
We're being asked to take these measures to preserve the NHS.
As people, old and vulnerable and not so vulnerable young, succumb to this virus, CV cases will swamp the NHS.
THERE WILL BE NO CAPACITY TO TREAT ANYTHING ELSE.

In days of yore, you may have got away with that as people's expectations were different.
Only you and yours were likely to hear about it.
No social media - you had little idea what was going on outside your own circle.

Rationing didn't end until 1954.

The world was a different place.

It's only since 1972 that children had to stay at school until they were 16.

Just checked hiv/aids is classed as a global pandemic.

A large cohort of the extremely old and vulnerable
My sense through all of this is more that we just have a large cohort of people whose health is fragile?

'We cling to life far more perhaps?'

I think people have always wanted to stay alive!

Just thought though. Religion may play a part.

Perhaps preserving your health will come to be seen as a kind of civic duty in the 'post-corona' era?

Painted Crosses on peoples doors and shouted "bring out your dead".

The other point is that everything is more global now. Supply chains. Food. Energy. In order to keep that all ticking over you can't have everyone ill at once. Hence the govt plan which is essentially that we all catch it but in an orderly manner.

Italy's lockdown is stricter than the one we just introduced
This is true but then again I have heard and seen reports of blatent flouting of the rules!

Seems like even hundreds of years ago we had an impulse to identify and quarantine those who were infected