I just read bout a pandemic that was first noted in the United States in September 1968. The “Hong Kong Flu” pandemic resulted in an estimated one million to four million deaths worldwide and 100,000 deaths in the Unites States. Most excess deaths were in people 65 years and older.
Why is it the fact that, although this virus still circulates as a seasonal flu, its initial path of destruction — and the fear that went with it — is rarely recalled?
This was coverage of the pandemic in The Wall Street Journal, Jan. 17, 1969.
In an excerpt from the Wall Street Journal on April 24, 2020:
That pandemic raged over three years, yet is largely forgotten today, a testament both to our resilience and to how societies are now approaching a similar crisis in a much different way.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Premier Boris Johnson and President Emmanuel Macron of France have described the coronavirus pandemic as their countries’ greatest challenge since World War II. Mr. Macron described it as a war.
But scientists and doctors say the Hong Kong flu is a more apt comparison. And because it happened in recent times—unlike the more devastating and better remembered Spanish Flu of 1918—it can offer lessons for today, though experts disagree on what these might be.
The H3N2 strain of the virus, came in two waves. We know now that the second wave was worse that the first. A vaccine was developed but wasn’t widely available before the disease had reached its second peak in most countries.
Were we more resilient then? Since there were fewer, if any, helicopter parents back in 1968, how did humans keep their children safe? Weren’t these people living in an era when it wasn’t unknown to get chicken pox, measles, mumps, German measles, or scarlet fever? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think there was a mask mandate, social distance policing or any lockdowns, anywhere.
Josh Fund from The National Review compares today’s reaction to a pandemic to the Hong Kong Flu:
The global response to COVID-19 couldn’t stand in starker contrast. Leaders have made the decision to do everything possible, including bringing entire economies to a crashing halt, to limit the loss of life. They’ve swept aside considerations of the negative health effects of locking people inside with a virus that spreads most virulently indoors. People who’ve been denied nonemergency surgeries are expected to comply and shut up about their pain, even though some will undoubtedly die from their conditions.
Joel Hay, a professor of pharmaceutical economics and policy at the University of Southern California, told me that the role of science has also changed. Medical technology has vastly improved from a time when people still did computations on slide rules. But the data it produces has seduced some into thinking that we know more than we actually do and that we can produce useful models to predict the course of this novel coronavirus disease. “We’re being bombarded with data, but we often act like the guy who looks for his keys under the lamppost because the light is better there,” he told me. “We aren’t asking more fundamental questions, like ‘Does this $20 trillion experiment in lockdowns actually work?’”
Our politicians also face new pressures that their counterparts in 1968 didn’t. Susan Craddock, professor at the Institute for Global Studies at the University of Minnesota, told the Wall Street Journal that 24-hour news coverage, social media, and heightened public anxiety mean today’s leaders face far more pressure to do something.
With each passing day, and with each new piece of information I discover, the more I feel our public servants are failing us.
Lionel Shriver breaks down some hard truths in The Spectator:
Politics, as opposed to science, does not reward the correction of mistakes, given that correcting a mistake also entails admitting to having made one. Worse, the bigger the mistake, the greater the political urgency of defending it at all costs.
I am steeped in dread. I foresee months, if not years, of inane gesturing towards ‘safety’ that makes no appreciable difference to the nation’s health, but does manage to 1) ruin everyone’s enjoyment; 2) perpetuate the socially poisonous notion that one’s neighbor is a threat to one’s very life; 3) maintain an atmosphere of the extraordinary, in which the state may violate civil rights at will; 4) lay waste to what little might otherwise have remained of this country’s economy. The lockdown has been bad enough. Post-lockdown could be worse.
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Interesting articles you might want to read:
‘How Fear, Groupthink Drove Unnecessary Global Lockdowns‘ – RealClearPolitics Academics used faulty information to build faulty models. Leaders relied on these faulty models. Dissenting views were suppressed. The media flamed fears and the world panicked - by Yinon Weiss
‘Worse than the disease‘ – Psychologist Carlos D’Abrera in the Australian Spectator
‘U.S. Cities Seen Losing $360 Billion of Revenue From Economic Rout‘ – More evidence that Bloomberg has gotten woke
End New York City’s lockdown now! By David Marcus - That’s all you need to know
Why Does Reopening Polarize Us? by Dan Crenshaw - The divide over lockdowns reflects deeper differences in attitudes about risk, liberty and morality
Andrew Cuomo is no hero. He's to blame for New York's coronavirus catastrophe by Nathan Robinson- His record was terrible before coronavirus, but his abysmal handling of the crisis should get him thrown out of office
Honey Boy
I watched this last night. It’s dark, deep and depressing at times. It’s a really good movie nonetheless.
Clayton Craddock is an independent thinker, father of two beautiful children in New York City. He is the drummer of the hit broadway musical Ain’t Too Proud. He earned a Bachelor of Business Administration from Howard University’s School of Business and is a 25 year veteran of the fast paced New York City music scene. He has played drums in a number of hit broadway and off-broadway musicals including “Tick, tick…BOOM!, Altar Boyz, Memphis The Musical and Lady Day At Emerson’s Bar and Grill. In addition, Clayton has worked on: Footloose, Motown, The Color Purple, Rent, Little Shop of Horrors, Evita, Cats, and Avenue Q.