How would we have reacted

I’m perfectly certain that vaccines wouldn’t have been developed so rapidly back in the 60s or 70s, so the deaths rate per head of population would have been much higher.

Would we have had lockdowns?
It’s difficult to say isn’t it?
I suspect any suggestion that hospitals were in danger of becoming overwhelmed would have forced some kind of action, as was the thinking with covid.

Interesting to ponder though.

Well the village of Eyam effectively locked itself down in an effort to prevent the spread of the plague. So I guess that we might have if it was considered the right thing to do.

EllenVannin I am sure there was a higher death rate than average for flu that year because we had no vaccination and had not the technology that enabled the rapid production of one that we have today.

Different flu and corona viruses affect different sectors of the population. In 1919/20, it was mainly those in the prime of life between 20 and 50 who were the victims, the elderly and the oung were less effected. This time round it was the elderly and those with co-morbidities who were most affected.

If this had happened in the 70's, there are so many differences in health care. that the outcome would have been greatly different. First of all, there were many more hospital beds available, and they would have filled them. Secondly, there wasn't the knowledge or technology to support those needing intubation - they would have just died. The death rate would have been higher.

But I also think that we would have listened to those in power (health ministers and government) and bided by guidelines better. I don't think we questioned authority as much then.

One would like to think that one would like to explain to those who don’t understand the point of what another is saying.

Bridgeit

I did .

Well if you can't understand what I was saying that is your issue.

I did .

Bridgeit

Perhaps reference your own post.

Perhaps reference yours

Thanks *JillyJosie28 for your comment. The Internet has changed society so much. It's been a fantastic invention but it certainly comes with downsides.

It is a worry how people with other illnesses might have been missed with the NHS concentrating so much on Covid, but that is how it evolved.

I quite agree that the majority of people would have been happy to have been vaccinated back then

Perhaps reference your own post.

Bridgeit

And I would just ask what is beneficial about bumbling along, when there is no need to ?

Why would you ask that? It makes no sense.

I wasn't suggesting we should have.

I was wondering just what would have happened had this happened pre Internet

And I would just ask what is beneficial about bumbling along, when there is no need to ?

Zoejory, I am not so curious as to wither you are right or wrong as I am in wondering why any one would NOT want to do what they could by being vaccinated against the possibility of a serious illness with the potential risk of dying.

My brother and I were very small during the flu epidemic in the 60s. Our parents were seriously ill and we were in effect neglected for several days. I remember us eating stale bread. The internet might have helped summon a neighbour to at least deliver some food.

My father had a telephone installed soon after they recovered.

Monica I was working on a 'flu ward in 1957 and it was killing more than enough, including teenagers.
I was vaccinated twice in two weeks of each one because of working amongst the infection.
It was bad enough in its day as there was probably only just a population of over 50 million.

Compare that with nearly 70 million today.

In the 1970s I think most people would have had the vaccination and there would not have been as large and as vociferous anti-vax community.

Most adults then were aware of the difference the anti-polio vaccination had made and many (including me) could remember how dreadful whooping cough could be as well as measles, before vaccinations against these illnesses became available.

Recently came across this photo of the 1918 Spanish flu, looks like the instruction to wear masks was known.

Zoejory I really like your point, I think the spread of information via the internet has now become a real problem, there is so much access to false information and to information that is not properly or accurately shared.

In the 1970s information still came from the Government and via official channels (including the BBC!) and we were much more likely to be inclined to obey authority because we weren't bombarded day and night by news stories and idiots who in the 1970s were restricted to Hyde Park Corner or wearing placards like the man who used to walk up and down Oxford Street in London carrying his reading 'Less lust from less protein'!

I was a trade union activist in the 1970s and 80s and it was through the TUs that alternative thinking took place. Most people did tend to do what they were told and police enforcement of public misbehaviour and crime was a lot more evident then than now.

On the other hand, if you look at public health interventions from the 19th century onwards, people were scared by all sorts of illnesses and diseases and so tended to cooperate in their eradication and governments would fund positive measures to improve health. Sadly, we seem to be increasingly left to our own devices now. I think 300,000 elective surgeries have been cancelled? Don't get ill!!

Well people being what they are, we would have just “bumbled along’ being a bit careful until it was our loved ones that died or us that had to nurse the sick because there was no space in hospitals.

We might have noticed when a lot of essential workers were too ill or dead and there was no clean water or electricity or food in the shops.

Monica snap

Spanish flu was a pandemic. People opened windows, wore masks and followed instructions and died in their millions. I'm not sure what point you are actually making.

EllanVannin. The Asian flu epidemic wasn't a patch on COVID, not so virulent, didn't affect as many or kill as many. It was also much more short-lived.

I was at boading school at the time and I do not think it lasted more than a Spring term. It was a day/boarding school and it did close for a fortnight while the teachers had flu, but that was all.

Hong Kong flu passed me by, I didn't even notice it. I cannot remember anyone Iknow at work or home having it. I think one needs to compare figures for numbers affected and the length of the pandemic.

The best comparator is the Spanish flu epidemic, which killed far more people than COVID 50 million, compared with 5-6 million. It is reasonable to argue that had it been possible for the same measures to be imposed then as now, the number of cases and deaths would have been much lower.

EllanVannin

There was no lockdown in 1957/8 with the Asian 'flu pandemic nor the Hong Kong 'flu in 1968.

Good point.

I'm not intending to minimise the pandemic, iloveccheese. I was just musing and pondering.

There is a lot of minimising of the pandemic on here.
But then I did read a post from someone who thought polio was not that bad because only two children in their class at school were crippled.

I think we might. Anyone remember the Three day week and the blackouts. The Conservative government of the day managed to communicate with the public without the Internet etc.