If this had happened 40-50 years ago...

[Swissrollypoly]

Do you think things would be different? Do you think we’d just have to get on with things as we wouldn’t have the means to work from home or communicate via Zoom or Microsoft teams etc.
Social media didn’t exist, so there wouldn’t be as much panic and scaremongering.
I just wonder how different it would all be, had it happened in another time period.

Some posters may have went abroad in the 1980s but it wasn't as widespread as it is now. ONS figures:
in 1971 UK residents went on 6.7 million foreign holidays
in 1996 UK residents went on 27 mill foreign holidays
in 2016 UK residents went on 45 mill foreign holidays

I think some people are getting 1980 confused with 1930. Easily done...

I agree @StopSquirtingBleachOnCaneToads

Women were definitely in the workplace in the 80's and I went on more holidays in Europe in that decade than I have since.

Omg this thread makes me feel ancient and as for the pp who said they won't cry over 80 year olds dying. That is appalling.

I think some people are getting 1980 confused with 1930

Same
Although to be fair when I think of 40 years ago I think of like the 40s and 50s but that's because I'm in denial as no, the 80s weren't 40 years ago

We also lived in a world where women were just barely entering the workforce

In the 1970s? What nonsense is this?

A lot more people would have died. We would be less aware of the moaning.

@AlecTrevelyan006

the 1968 flu pandemic is estimated to have caused around an extra 80,000 deaths in the UK

life carried on pretty much as normal

No, it was around 30,000 extra deaths in the UK spread over three years. Really not comparable.

@SwoopingDown

If it had happened 40 or 50 years ago, hopefully the government of the time would have take measures like today, unlike allowing all the Spanish Flu pandemic deaths that occurred a few decades before.

40 years ago was 1980, the Spainsh flu was over 100 years ago, so more than a few decades. No actin would have been taken because we would not have known, the test capability we have would not exist, we would know it was different to flu. There is a lot of evidence that this virus was around prior to Dec last year in China and was mistaken for flu. Also, one of the reasons deaths in low income countries are so low is because the people venerable to this virus are not alive to be killed by it. We are, to some extent, victims of our health service.

FFS if any of you had set foot in a hospital in the last few weeks you'd see it was nothing like a "bad flu year."

So we keep hearing. The reaction to this so called “deadly virus” is the biggest act of mass hysteria that we have seen in our lifetime.

And social media has a LOT to answer for!

@Dongdingdong

FFS if any of you had set foot in a hospital in the last few weeks you'd see it was nothing like a "bad flu year."

So we keep hearing. The reaction to this so called “deadly virus” is the biggest act of mass hysteria that we have seen in our lifetime.

If the leading scientists advising the government are calling for infection control measures based on scientific evidence, then how is that hysteria?

there definitely wasn't anything like the blanket coverage and general hysteria we're seeing now. I know we have social media, 24 hour news etc now but even so
Completely agree.
And in those days was the gvt job to reduce panic, rather than engender it which they are doing now /eg ‘new mutant strain’ etc to try to rekindle the fear after people have seen through the first lot of bullshit.

If the leading scientists advising the government are calling for infection control measures based on scientific evidence, then how is that hysteria?

Just look at some of the ridiculous threads on the MN coronavirus board and you will find your answer.

@Dongdingdong ah you didn't answer my question.

There is an excellent scientific case for taking further infection control measures. So maybe we should follow the science then. Rather than making cheap jibes about other posters.

@EmmanuelleMakro

there definitely wasn't anything like the blanket coverage and general hysteria we're seeing now. I know we have social media, 24 hour news etc now but even so Completely agree. And in those days was the gvt job to reduce panic, rather than engender it which they are doing now /eg ‘new mutant strain’ etc to try to rekindle the fear after people have seen through the first lot of bullshit.

So do you not understand that there have been new developments in understanding about the infectivity of this mutated strain?

@Dongdingdong ah you didn't answer my question.

Errr, yes I did?

We also lived in a world where women were just barely entering the workforce. That could have been stopped very easily if schools needed to close.

This isn’t correct, in 1980 the % was 60% and now it’s 80%

So there is a VERY GOOD scientific case for lockdown and school closure and you would agree about that?

So why use a sexist term like "hysteria" on a parenting website with a lot of female posters?

I can see that a lot of posters on here are understandably concerned.

But then we are in the middle of a pandemic, and hospital admissions are apparently the worst they have been since the start of it.

Do you not understand that this is a reasonable cause for concern?

What part of this are you not understanding ?

that was @Dongdingdong

40 years ago was the eighties! Everyone I knew went in package holidays, every mother I knew worked - it really wasn't the 1950s. In fact the only difference I'd say there is to today is lack of social media.

So why use a sexist term like "hysteria" on a parenting website with a lot of female posters?

Oh please. I said “mass hysteria” - mass clearly implying men and women, the population as a whole. Men can be partakers in mass hysteria too you know!

I can see that a lot of posters on here are understandably concerned.

There’s a vast difference between being concerned and spreading deliberately scaremongering posts, which appear a lot on MN. Or are you one of the posters who thinks we should lock down for the next year and destroy our economy still further - and that life will never get back to normal even though there’s now a vaccine?

Perhaps look at the newspapers for 1918-20 for Spanish influenza, to get an idea of the similarities between then and now

@Dongdingdong

So why use a sexist term like "hysteria" on a parenting website with a lot of female posters?

Oh please. I said “mass hysteria” - mass clearly implying men and women, the population as a whole. Men can be partakers in mass hysteria too you know!

I can see that a lot of posters on here are understandably concerned.

There’s a vast difference between being concerned and spreading deliberately scaremongering posts, which appear a lot on MN. Or are you one of the posters who thinks we should lock down for the next year and destroy our economy still further - and that life will never get back to normal even though there’s now a vaccine?

I think we should listen to the scientists.

We may need school on line for a bit for some children, possibly more than the government has already agreed.

We may need an element of lockdown given the current numbers. But #I don't think anyone is suggesting lockdown for a year?

We need to control virus spread for health AND the economy as they're not separate.

Nothing in this is hysterical and that's a really unhelpful dismissive term to use.

As is scar

sorry. As is scaremongering (aka discussing current issues on a discussion board)

My older sister reminded me that she went to school, enjoyed the company of her friends and our family's restaurant wasn't closed in 1968 and the Woodstock Festival in NY still had over 60K people attending during a pandemic.

My daughter's friend, born 1999 had emigrated from Hong Kong to the US and remembers she and her entire family having SARS and having to isolate for a week once they arrived. She said that her parents had a "flu" and that was pretty much it. No one really mentioned it.