Do you remember measles and polio?

[Dilbertian]

I remember the children's lido at the park being shut for several months because of polio, and either my class or the whole infant school being shut for several weeks because of measles. Children with measles were quarantined at home, as were their siblings and any friends they had played with just before becoming ill.

This is what living with covid is going to be like. We will take the precautions we can, and respond to infection spikes. We now have 2 or 3 generations of adults who grew up with very little dangerous infectious disease around them. What they think is abnormal, or the new normal, is normal. This is what was normal for their parents and grandparents.

No I don't personally remember polio. But I had a teacher when I was aged about 7 who had had polio as a child and had scars on her legs which were visible when she wore dresses and skirts. She quite openly told us they were because she had polio as a child and wasn't it wonderful

Wasn't it wonderful we could all be vaccinated.

My grandfather was a paraplegic, due to childhood polio.

One of my mother's best schoolfriends ended up living in an iron lung / mechanical ventilator (became quite famous for her mouth paintings in slightly later life.

Lots of small shops used to have the 'little girl' collecting boxes outside.

Although I don't remember polio closures personally, the scars of them were still very much present in my childhood.

I was at primary school with a wee girl who had had polio. I can remember being frightened and relieved because by that time we had the vaccine

I knew a few people with polio. I watched a documentary a few weeks ago about the polio season and the race for a vaccine. I have a family member with a brain injury due to measles he was born a few years before vaccine,

Yes, but I’m from Pakistan where both are still a big problem.

I certainly remember measles. Had it myself.
I don't remember polio, but it was around in the 60s when I was a kid. There was a boy in my class who wore a leg brace. Might have been a result of polio - I wouldn't have thought to ask at the time.

I had measles.
My mother was advised not to vaccinate me for medical reasons by the GP.
My kids are vaccinated.
I don’t remember polio.

But measles and polio are totally different! They were both traditionally childhood diseases while coronavirus is deadly primarily to the elderly. That’s like comparing Alzheimer’s disease with chicken pox.

I’m in my 40s and by the time I was born they had started to vaccinate against measles and polio. I remember catching other diseases such as mumps and rubella though. I was quarantined for weeks when I had mumps and they kept most of my class off school.

My mother also remembers diptheria

Frankly, all those diseases sound far more scary to me - the fear for your children.

And sadly, all these diseases still kill today, and will kill more as vaccination campaigns stall due to covid disruption. I hope now we have rediscovered our fear of dying before 90 we can collectively push to wipe out diseases we can control eg those we have simple, cheap vaccines for. Apparently we all care far more for others now - great - let's see the money and resources flow to eradicate measles and polio. Polio, we were really almost there!

I can remember seeing a boy wearing callipers when I was small.
DC1 had measles at 3, despite being vaccinated, and was very unwell.

I remember my brother having measles - it’s left him slightly deaf in one ear. Don’t remember me being quarantined because he had it though.

Just over 18months ago someone I knew died of TB.

Vaccination and Antibiotics are wonderful. My DDs had Scarlet Fever. Antibiotics, and just needed a couple of days off school. Not a lengthy convalescence period.

I went to school with a girl who had calipers and rode a tricycle due to polio.
I went to school with a girl who was deaf due to catching measles as a baby before she could be vaccinated.
I also remember being told I was one of the last people ever to be vaccinated against smallpox due to an accident in a lab which my mother had contact with when I was little.

@blackbirdcottage

But measles and polio are totally different! They were both traditionally childhood diseases while coronavirus is deadly primarily to the elderly. That’s like comparing Alzheimer’s disease with chicken pox.

Many of the so-called childhood diseases are far deadlier in the elderly than in children. But they are childhood diseases purely because they are rare in the elderly. They are highly infectious, so tend to be caught early in people's lives, and survivors remain immune thereafter.

And they can cause life-changing health issues, too, whether directly, from secondary infections or from the virus triggering auto-immune conditions. I have an adult child with an auto-immune condition caused by mumps. And all my dc are fully immunised. Nonetheless...

What scars would polio leave ?
It is a disease of the motor nerves that causes muscle wasting.

The victims of the last big "polio summer" in the UK are now in their late 70's and early 80's

Smallpox killed 30% of people who caught it
it was finally eliminated in 1980

Whynotme
Smallpox vaccinations were standard well into the 60's and 70's in many countries

The girl I knew who had had polio had moved to the UK from somewhere else (not sure where - possibly Cambodia).

Listeningquietly - I was born in the mid 70s

Google Janet Parker re smallpox

Yes I had measles as a child before there was a vaccine.
I remember being very ill in a dark room and I was left with some hearing loss.
Everyone got it. Some died, some were left with lifelong effects and some were fine.
II remember children in my school with calipers from polio.
The difference with covid is that it's not a serious disease in children and while they may pass it on to adults they are not going to die.

Whynot
Both cool and very sad at the same time

I’m too young to remember either (almost 40 and don’t often get to say that these days!) but it did strike me quite early on in this pandemic how cushioned and lucky we’ve been for a very long time in the west from a medical aspect.

My grandparents met in a TB sanatorium (which I understand would have been deeply frowned upon since they were strictly sex segregated - obviously not enough ) and my grandfather died from TB a couple of months before my mother was born. My grandmother lived into her 80’s and I’ve wondered what she would have made of it all.

I read a diary account of a mother with a two year old being diagnosed with TB and having to leave him to quarantine in a sanatorium. It was all very stoic and matter of fact the way she recorded starting to cough up blood and how she hoped to see him again when she was well enough again and if his father would cope. She lived to a decent old age if I remember rightly.

I think even in times medicine wasn’t as advanced covid would have had a massive impact but I think people were far more resilient to the threat from disease simply because they had to be.

I’m far more appreciative of my good fortune at being born in a part of the world this isn’t a common occurrence.

I remember measels - had them before the vaccine.
Remember local polio outbreaks even after the vaccine - due to anti-vaxxing religious groups in my larger home area. And I even remember seeing the last occurence of smallpocks on TV: A person enclosed in a kind of tent brought out of a house by people in full protective gear.