Why does no one talk about the 1989-90 epidemic?

[LinemanForTheCounty]

Found out about this recently - 29000 dead. Looking at the dates I had it and after effects including pleurisy (I was 20, no reason for me to have pleurisy other than this). It affected people under 25 worst.

I dunno. I'm trying to figure this all out but that's a lot of people dead, mostly young people. Did we get it wrong then or have we got it wrong now? Our response, I mean.

[quote LinemanForTheCounty]@sentient oh my word, you poor thing, I'm so sorry to hear about what you've been through. I believe you when you say it's useful information for you but what a terrible situation and awful that doctors didn't know what to do. for you.[/quote]
I left a response and forgot to @ you. So sorry.

I was going to say that I didn’t remember this at all but actually I did have flu in December 1989. It was the illest I’ve ever been, without a doubt. I don’t, however, remember many other people being ill.

There is some data on numbers, Chemenger, in the old article I linked to up thread. Children and young adults were the most affected and there were regional differences too so perhaps this is why people have different memories?

I agree with pinkfondantfancy about the difference that 24 hour news cycles have made. I can't imagine a daily news briefing as we have had up until last week.

I remember being very ill with the flu around this time. It’s one of those things I remember so vividly, as I was doing a first aid course for work with another girl from the office and the previous week, she had fainted and it was really in the middle of a first aid course, mentioning how to deal with fainting. Then the following week, I came over soooo ill and spent the whole morning thinking “I mustn’t faint like colleague last week, they’ll think we’re taking the piss.”

Managed to last the morning then had to walk home, arrived back and promptly went to bed for about the next week.

Thinking about it I fell ill at the very end of two weeks on a residential management course, where we would not have been keeping up with the news, then I was ill In bed for more than a week. So I would not have known if there was an epidemic for the best part of a month. If you didn’t watch the news or read a paper back then you would have little idea what was going on.

I do remember the 1989 epidemic. There was news coverage at the time.
I had flu for the first and only time 🙏🏽🤞🏽 in December.
It poleaxed me for weeks. I went to school feeling OK and got sent home an hour later. Didn't go back to school for a few weeks.

I wonder if I had this flu... Back when I was 1 month old. I was so poorly apparently and ended up in hospital. My mum has recalled it a few times. She heard them saying they though I had pneumonia but they didn't actually speak to her and tell her what was going on for ages (many hours I think) 😢

I do remember as I had flu severely that year and spent over 6 weeks at home in bed with my mum giving me bed baths. I remember crawling on hands and knees to use the bathroom as I was so weak. The GP even did a home visit which ime is unheard of.

My granny, who would have been 65+ at the time with COPD, had the flu in 1998/99. I remember going with my mum to bathe her as she couldn't get out of bed. My mum (then 30s) caught it from her and I remember her literally crawling up the stairs to get to bed.

I'm 32 and I've never had flu in my life. Despite working public facing jobs, using public transport etc.

Loads of colds, and the adenovirus last winter was pretty bad, but never the flu.

Maybe flu doesn't spread as well as COVID because afaik the flu hits fast and people are bedbound so not spreading it, whereas cironaviruses come on slowly.

Just remembered as well, my dad was in an actual coma for weeks because of 'double flu' , it would have been about 1977-1982. He would've been about 18-22, was working on a farm, the farmer was on holiday and you can't just not milk the cows, so he kept going until he was found collapsed and woke up a few weeks later after having been in a coma.

Viruses can be nasty things. HIV, HPV, HSV, ebola. Many are implicated in cancer and long term disability.