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Comment by GDC7 | Hacker News Reader

> There were flu outbreaks in the 60's and 70's and people noticed

No, they didn't. The population back then wasn't as depressed and anxious as today's population.

They didn't extrapolate figures and trends and charts. They were not bombarded by news on 5 different screen devices.

They'd notice when 5,6,7 or even 10 people they knew, and in the same age/health cohort as them would become incapacitated for more than 4 weeks, but in order to really notice it the same amount of people would have to be dying from the disease.

How many people you know became incapacitated for more than 4 weeks because of COVID? 2 years into it how many died?

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I suspect neither of us were around then, so we can't really say, on a personal level, whether we would've noticed the 1968 flu pandemic. But the fact is millions of people died, and millions more got sick. Television and news papers were obviously around then, so people would've been talking about it. We are definitely more connected today, but to claim it "would not have been noticed" is an exaggeration.

As for Covid, I personally know at least 5 people who got sick, 1 was out of work for 4 weeks, though none died. How about you?

> whether we would've noticed the 1968 flu pandemic

What do your parents tell you about that year?

Students protests

Vietnam War

Woodstock

Moon landing

Drugs

African Americans finally getting their voices heard.

Nobody ever mentions the 1968 flu pandemic, given how things are 50 years from now we'd still be talking about COVID and fearing its #100,000 variant.

> As for Covid, I personally know at least 5 people who got sick, 1 was out of work for 4 weeks, though none died. How about you?

1 got sick, recovered in 8 days. Considering the median individual has a circle of 200 people they know.

It's 1/200 for me and 1/200 for you.

Certainly, tons of stuff happened during that time. However, my parents actually did mention the 1968 flu pandemic (though it was prompted by covid discussions, it wasn't just out of the blue.)

But yeah, you're probably right... if things keep up like this, we won't go back to normal due to anxiety and fear. I can see this going on for additional years.

Only if we let it. We seriously have no clue to the bad effects of shutting down and limiting our society in this manner.

In my country we had a serious flu in 2017/18 that nobody remembers anymore. Back then the number of hospitalized were more than double of the current numbers.

And yet here we are with new restrictions going into effect. It's time to say enough is enough and elect politicians that can treat Corona as a disease we have to live with.

The cultural trace of the Spanish flu is remarkably thin, too.

1918 is remembered as the year when the Great War ended and several empires disintegrated, even though the flu almost certainly killed more people than the war, and in much shorter time.

And yet, books, movies and songs about the Spanish flu are rare.

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