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.

@Lemons1571

I think neighbours would’ve supported each other to a greater extent. Things were more localised in 1980.

Depends where you live. A lot of neighbour support groups popped up here in first lockdown

It wouldn’t have left China 50 years ago so we simply would not be in this situation.

My family and no one I knew , I did make it clear we were work8 g class. As were the vast majority of the population. Just because your elected group did travel does not mean it was commonplace ?

I was a kid in the 80s and didn't go abroad until I was 10. It was a big thing when a friend went to (then) Eurodisney. It wasn't exactly rare people went away but itwasnt common - as the statistics linked above suggest! I expect some families on here were the wealtheir ones.

In my junior school mums were all at the school gate , no after school or breakfast clubs then. Working was just harder childcare wise, so many in our area had "pin money jobs" so a few hours in a shop or supermarket in the evenings or while kids at achool. Lots of teachers were pre kids or went back to teaching after their kods were older (in the days it was considered a family friendly career 🙄.)

We didnt eat out every week! It was very occasional and took sandwhiches to the yearly big trip to the zoo. We weren't poor or on benefits or anything either - professional father, but it was just normal for our area.

Of course some people could. But like the stats above show it wasnt anywhere near as prevalent as now. Life really was very different for a lot of people.

Pye - it would! Just more slowly! How do you think the Black Death spread around the world in the 1300s?

@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

So this time round (so far) we have similar excess death rates despite all the restrictions and advanced healthcare now available. What would our excess death rates look like if we'd just carried on as normal?

The three day week in the 70s wasn't the big deal people make it out to be and isn't really comparable. It was only in place for just over two months in early 1974 and meant that commercial users of electricity were limited to three specified consecutive days' consumption each week, but numerous services including supermarkets were exempt. It meant that for a short time some goods were in slightly short supply, but that was about it.

@midgeghost

There was not a lot of foreign travel in the 70s

In my family, there was one uncle who went abroad on a package holiday
We were in a working class area

This is all anecdotal. I worked in London and lived on the outskirts. My family went abroad every year from 1959, with friends and other family. I started work in 1970 and went abroad with friends every year with them. Package holidays were becoming hugely popular

[quote EdithWeston]@Nanny0gg

I have already posted again acknowledging error, and expanding on what I was thinking of.

I apologise again, and will continue to do so - to you, to anyone else who still thinks I don't accept the point, and I shall make oblations to the gods of thread-reading in general[/quote]
Thank you

😁

Blimey some of the comments on here about the 80s!

Women DID work (not as much but my mum worked from when I was 6) and people DID travel (I went on package holidays to Malta, Tenerife and Majorca, and on school trips to Germany right through the 80s and my parents were not wealthy).

If this had happened in the 1980s we would have had to have carried on because there was no internet unless we did correspondence courses with our teachers (and maybe they could have put out lessons on local radio).

@Pyewhacket

It wouldn’t have left China 50 years ago so we simply would not be in this situation.

What??

NannyOgg. Yes çan you see yours is annecdotal too? The actual stats were further up thread. Considerable less flying then!!

@Pyewhacket

It wouldn’t have left China 50 years ago so we simply would not be in this situation.

Mass travel and open borders are the price we pay for this year.

Global pandemic aside this thread is hilarious.
1980 a far away time when there was no social media. BUT

People listened to the radio for news
The telephone rang incessantly
There were morning national papers and regional evening ones
Add in telex machines and by 1982 fax and communication was pretty quick for business, notwithstanding telegrams.

As for all sorts of other social historical nonsense on this thread the only thing that can be confirmed as a result of social media is that it has done little to aid basic historical knowledge.

In 1980 at the age of 20 I had been to Europe many times, had been ski-ing, had been to the US three times, was starting my first job in the City, had my own car and bought a flat in 1981! My mother and grandmother worked. The NHS was already disorganised with waiting lists and Drs and nurses complained continually about lack of resources.

My great grandparents died in the 60s at 83 and 85; my grandparents lived to 85 and 90.

My grandma and mother had washing machines in the 60s and we had lots of bar soap, not so much gel, bubble bath and shampoo.

I think it's difficult to compare this pandemic with previous ones due to varying demographics but I do think the 80s generation would have had a greater understanding of the statistics and very few people without underlying conditions under 60 have died something like 388. However life has become more sacred and people nowadays suffer appalling quality of life due to illness to maintain it.

@RememberSelfCompassion

NannyOgg. Yes çan you see yours is annecdotal too? The actual stats were further up thread. Considerable less flying then!!

I'm aware there were fewer continental Holidays then. (And I acknowledged that my experiences were anecdotal too) but they weren't as rare as some are making out.

However, there are so many errors on this thread, stated as fact that people should end their posts with their DOB!

Midge - there were 18 million outbound foreign trips from the uk in 1980 (according to researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06022) that is loads! Plenty enough to spread viruses around.
There were 70million in 2018 - enormous! And far more than in the 80s but that increase doesn't mean it was rare to travel in the 80s.

@Nanny0gg

China had close borders with the rest of the world from some point in the Cultural Revolution until after the panda diplomacy of the late 1970s.

There was very little travel in and out, so the ability of a disease to pass beyond the national boundaries would be sharply lower than it is today.

I was talking about the 70s 1970 to 1979

@MaryLeeOnHigh

The three day week in the 70s wasn't the big deal people make it out to be and isn't really comparable. It was only in place for just over two months in early 1974 and meant that commercial users of electricity were limited to three specified consecutive days' consumption each week, but numerous services including supermarkets were exempt. It meant that for a short time some goods were in slightly short supply, but that was about it.

It wasn't comparable to today and lockdown but it was a big deal.

Petrol rationing made getting to work an absolute nightmare for a start. Transport timetables were all over the shop.

It was not much fun

Anyone remember Freddie Laker .

Plenty of women worked in 1980.
When the teachers went on strike and would do lunch times we used to pile on the one house where the mum worked nights to eat our sarnies.
All the other mams worked in the sweet factories the sewing workshops, the shops, as cleaners etc
Maybe not full time but they didn’t just clean all day.

There was no possibility of anyone working from home and huge swathes took public transport every single day. Twice a day.
Cafes were constantly busy.
Pubs were rammed.
Discos/dances were packed.
Kids on estates dived in and out of each other’s houses for drinks (only to be told to get back out and play ).

The idea that any virus wouldn’t have sites dis hysterical.

Also the idea that we’d have all obeyed the rules is just daft. The 70s/80s saw huge rebellion against the governments of the day.

The current tragic death statistics are WITH stringent lockdown and social distancing etc. Without all the measure taken, deaths would possibly be in the 300-500k range. There is basically universal agreement on that which is why every government on the planet has had to temporarily reshape its society. You could argue we should have gone down that route. But I disagree.

I do think the 80s generation would have had a greater understanding of the statistics and very few people without underlying conditions under 60 have died something like 388.

This is such a stupid, misleading statistic. I'm a healthy person a lot younger than 60 but as I have asthma, which is perfectly manageable with inhalers, I wouldn't be added to that 388 if I dropped dead from Covid.

Some younger people seem to have a strange perception of the 'olden days'! I was at school during the 1968 pandemic and my father was also a doctor but I cannot remember ever hearing about it! There was far more concern about polio - can't remember when that scare was - but they developed a vaccine pretty quickly for that and you had to had 2 shots. This was before they invented the oral vaccine (on a sugar lump!).

Regarding travel, we went away to France and Spain by car every year from 1963, and I went on my first skiing holiday in 1974. All independent travel arranged by my parents. The time of the power cuts was spring 1972 as I was studying for my A Levels and it was difficult revising by candlelight! My parents had 2 cars from 1962 and my mother never went out to work until she decided she wanted some 'pin money' and picked up bits of work here and there around the end of the 70s/early 80s.

Just wanted to show another side of that time - and I will tell those of you too young to have been there - they were FANTASTIC times!

@Cam77

The current tragic death statistics are WITH stringent lockdown and social distancing etc. Without all the measure taken, deaths would possibly be in the 300-500k range. There is basically universal agreement on that which is why every government on the planet has had to temporarily reshape its society. You could argue we should have gone down that route. But I disagree.

Maybe 50 years ago they'd have shut the borders and more virulent strains wouldn't be spread around the globe constantly. Less restrictions in countries as a result, but just far less travel.

Globalisation can't deal with a pandemic.