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?

Plus to be fair we don't all get to 'stay at home'. I'm classed as front line and am fully expected/expecting to rock up to work unless I become symptomatic. I don't get any paid extra, and frankly it certainly wasn't ever a part of my job description 🙄 but what can you do? If those who actually can/should stay at home do. Instead of traipsing about on what they consider 2wks 'extra' paid leave?... That would help a lot! Unfortunately people can be idiots...

It's complicated because on one hand it seems the damage to the economy will affect many more people particularly younger generations. Our birth rate will likely drop further (after a mini boom) as life is even more expensive & then we perpetuate the problem. However there would never have been the appetite to declare the approach was to prioritise those under 50 & therefore we need to lockdown to reduce the burden.

but it was these strongest who had been in close quarters at the front and were exhausted, broken, cold.
It affected men and women in equal measures, so that theory doesnt hold true.

We had fever hospitals for outbreaks like this, we had one in Sheffield out on the moors in the middle of nowhere, anyone with scarlet fever, TB, Meningitis or anything else highly contagious was shipped off there until they were better or died. It was a fresh air hospital, all the wards had verandas & beds were wheeled outside during the day all year round.

They invented quarantine, we built sanatoriums, we developed vaccines, infant mortality declined drastically, life expectancy rose rapidly, we started to believe dying from these things was avoidable, preventable, we became detached from the reality of our own mortality and when we have close brushes with it we remind ourselves that we can FIGHT death. We can ERADICATE child hood illnesses like measles and mumps. we can BEAT cancer. WE have the power (as a species) to DEFEAT premature death and TREAT all health conditions.

But it's not true. Anybody who has been diagnosed with an untreatable condition will know how it feels to be cheated of this. To be told that there is no pill or operation or diet or lifestyle change to fix it, you just have to live with it or die from it. But that's a minority. Most people on a daily basis do not think about the reality of dying and that it is beyond their control. We don't have to. It doesn't usually smack us in the face so often. That's why this is a shock. Because we have became arrogant in our countries ability to stop death happening unless we are really old. We talk about people in their 40s dying tragic deaths much too young. That shit used to be normal. We have been in a bubble of privilege

It's all a bit Soylent Green

Nat6999
Dh aunt was in one in Lewisham when she was 3 for diphtheria, her parents were not allowed to visit her.
Mary Berry also has written about her time in a polio ward when she was 12. Her parents were only allowed to see her through glass

It affected men and women in equal measures, so that theory doesnt hold true.
I am going to re write that. The mortality graphs show me had a slightly higher mortality from 1918 flu but both graphs for men and women had the same w shape with the middle peak in being around 30 years old.
There were over a 1000 deaths in a matter of weeks in the training camps before they were even shipped to Europe

It arrived on horseback in most places then. Much slower rate of transmission so less people worried at once.

When we get an update today millions are reading and reacting at once.

It arrived on horseback in most places then. Much slower rate of transmission so less people worried at once

I had no idea how fortunate we were to be driving about in an Austin A40 and not a horse in 1968 !!!

If a PP is correct and the idea of this lockdown is to save the NHS, then why on earth have we waited until it has overwhelmed the NHS and become endemic in the UK ?

And uncle of mine was in an isolation hospital with scarlet fever as a very small child, this would have been back in the late 1940s I think

My Nan was discharged from the WAAF in WWII due to Tuberculosis and spent 3 months in a Sanatorium. I have a photo of her out on the lawns with some other patients. She said it was the grandest place she ever lived (agricultural working class family)!

Extracts from a diary written by a woman with TB in the 40s:

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1079536/

Two of my grandparents had TB and spent months in sanitoriums. The one my grandmother was in was literally in the middle of nowhere.

The 1957 and 1968 ones weren’t on the same scale as 1918 and 2020.
In 1918 there was major disruption as people fell sick in large numbers at once. Some towns closed themselves off and fared better than those that didn’t. In some places schools were closed for months.

Mass movement after WW1 helped spread the flu but obviously there was no commercial flight. Package holidays only really took off in the 60s, but wouldn’t have been on the same scale as now.

Letting people fly to and from infection hotspots like Italy was a terrible mistake.

Been said on lbc this morning that people are arriving at Heathrow & not even being checked. In Cyprus all arrivals are being checked & bussed into quarantine for 14 days. That’s what we should be doing here.

Some got better, many died.
Life was simpler and far fewer people to spread the virus.
The 1918 flu pandemic was similar in it's spread, just took 8 days for it to travel by ship rather than 24 hours by plane.

1 remember the 1968/69 flu. I was five. I remember it because our neighbours' baby died. He was the same age as my sister.

@ListeningQuietly

Germany has been on lockdown since 13/3. They have a good health service. But they have absolutely no illusions about it being able to cope with the expected impact of Covid19 - hence the draconian shutdowns. These are the only way without a vaccine to stop the spread of this disease to a level that the health service can deal with.

The NHS is less well funded. But the recent addition of the entire private health care infrastructure combined with experience of regular multi district co-working means that they will be able to surge capacity very quickly.

But no health service anywhere will be able to cope with this. A German doctor I know with experience of both systems summed it up when he said that the NHS will be hit by a 25 metre tsunami. Germany’s wave may only be 10 metres high. But the outcome will be the same.

The only way we can change this is by staying home.

During the Spanish flu epidemic people were already used to children and adults over 40 dying. It wasn’t unusual for a woman who gave birth to ten or twelve live children to only have two or three still alive by the age of 15. That is how things were. It’s very likely nobody noticed there was an epidemic until young people between 15-30 started dying and by then it was too late.

But I need to ask one thing. Why did you look at past UK pandemics to get your info? You only need to look at recent ones in Asia or the half a million people who die worldwide (mostly children) every year of Malaria to know these types of viral pandemics / epidemics are common. Even in the UK a particularly virulent form of flu can kill hundreds of premature / sick babies and children who might otherwise have expected to survive - it’s not just a disease of the elderly

Comparing the effectiveness of Italys lock down to ours doesnt really feel like a true comparison, as there were so many mixed messages throughout theirs that most people didnt understand the severity of it and so just didnt do it.
Some businesses which are seen as non essential have only recently closed and in one particularly bad area (sorry I'll try and find the link to be more specific in a bit) a popular street market only closed this past week.
They may have had a lock down in some areas but not in all that needed until recently and some of the ones that did have not been complying with it at all until the recent media attention and powers of enforcement.
Hopefully it will help reinforce the message that we need to stay home, as if we don't....that's what happens.

We travelled less to start with, and people just died

We had smaller population, we travelled less, less media in general, less supermarkets, less public transport, less ability to know how everyone else is feeling.

But yes people died. You can't really say "how did we cope with the Spanish you epidemic" when 100m died globally. We clearly didn't cope very well.

Even in plaque times people were quarantined in their homes and borders shut down.

Milan largely escaped the bubonic plague. Because as soon as anyone was suspected of having it they were bricked up in their homes by the local aristocracy.