Comparing the Wuhan flu with the 1968 Hong Kong flu
Link here.
The Hong Kong flu killed about twice as many people in the U.S. as COVID-19 has so far, and it did this for a population about a third smaller (200 million vs 328 million), meaning that its deadliness was even worse. Yet:
Nothing closed. Schools stayed open. All businesses did too. You could go to the movies. You could go to bars and restaurants. John Fund has a friend who reports having attended a Grateful Dead concert. In fact, people have no memory or awareness that the famous Woodstock concert of August 1969 – planned in January during the worse period of death – actually occurred during a deadly American flu pandemic that only peaked globally six months later. There was no thought given to the virus which, like ours today, was dangerous mainly for a non-concert-going demographic.
Stock markets didn’t crash. Congress passed no legislation. The Federal Reserve did nothing. Not a single governor acted to enforce social distancing, curve flattening (even though hundreds of thousands of people were hospitalized), or banning of crowds. No mothers were arrested for taking their kids to other homes. No surfers were arrested. No daycares were shut even though there were more infant deaths with this virus than the one we are experiencing now. There were no suicides, no unemployment, no drug overdoses.
Essentially, life went on. Except for a few people who took some precautions, mostly in connection with older and already sick individuals, everyone took little notice, recognizing that — just like COVID-19 — the Hong Kong flu was not threat to them, and that the best way to beat it was to allow the young and healthy to get it, recover, and thus develop an immunity that would limit its spread to the old and vulnerable.
The result was that the Hong Kong was a blip to society, hardly remembered today, and never a problem. Sadly the situation today is different. Because we decided to panic, we have essentially destroyed our economy and our future freedom. Behaviors that are simply absurd (wearing masks all the time and never getting closer than six feet to anyone else) are becoming socially required.
And the idea that a government can bankrupt business and harass women and children, at will, has now become acceptable.
It will be a long time before a people will ever be as free as Americans once were.
Link here.
The Hong Kong flu killed about twice as many people in the U.S. as COVID-19 has so far, and it did this for a population about a third smaller (200 million vs 328 million), meaning that its deadliness was even worse. Yet:
Nothing closed. Schools stayed open. All businesses did too. You could go to the movies. You could go to bars and restaurants. John Fund has a friend who reports having attended a Grateful Dead concert. In fact, people have no memory or awareness that the famous Woodstock concert of August 1969 – planned in January during the worse period of death – actually occurred during a deadly American flu pandemic that only peaked globally six months later. There was no thought given to the virus which, like ours today, was dangerous mainly for a non-concert-going demographic.
Stock markets didn’t crash. Congress passed no legislation. The Federal Reserve did nothing. Not a single governor acted to enforce social distancing, curve flattening (even though hundreds of thousands of people were hospitalized), or banning of crowds. No mothers were arrested for taking their kids to other homes. No surfers were arrested. No daycares were shut even though there were more infant deaths with this virus than the one we are experiencing now. There were no suicides, no unemployment, no drug overdoses.
Essentially, life went on. Except for a few people who took some precautions, mostly in connection with older and already sick individuals, everyone took little notice, recognizing that — just like COVID-19 — the Hong Kong flu was not threat to them, and that the best way to beat it was to allow the young and healthy to get it, recover, and thus develop an immunity that would limit its spread to the old and vulnerable.
The result was that the Hong Kong was a blip to society, hardly remembered today, and never a problem. Sadly the situation today is different. Because we decided to panic, we have essentially destroyed our economy and our future freedom. Behaviors that are simply absurd (wearing masks all the time and never getting closer than six feet to anyone else) are becoming socially required.
And the idea that a government can bankrupt business and harass women and children, at will, has now become acceptable.
It will be a long time before a people will ever be as free as Americans once were.