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That's interesting. Thanks for the link. However, social distancing and quarantine was recommended by the Swedish health authority in the early stages of the p

That's interesting. Thanks for the link. However, social distancing and quarantine was recommended by the Swedish health authority in the early stages of the pandemic. I refered to the society wide lockdowns, those kinds of measures were not applied (could not have been applied) in 1918.

Retric 5y ago
What specific difference are you thinking of? The US had plenty of local lockdowns in 1918, including such things as school by phone. Mask mandates, closing or minimum 20 foot separation between tables at restaurants etc. I agree it was a more local response, some locations closed bookstores others kept them open etc. But we only created the CDC in response to the Spanish flu, there simply wasn’t a national organization developed to handle pandemic response.
- geysersam 5y ago
  I don't believe there were enough telephone infrastructure to have school over phone for more than a very marginal part of the population in 1918. I'd like to be proven wrong. I'm talking about lockdowns. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_lockdowns https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_lockdowns > there simply wasn’t a national organization developed to handle pandemic response. Exactly. But not only that, our technical and economic capability to implement such lockdowns widely eclipse the society of 1918. These are enormous differences.
  - Retric 5y ago
    I think you have it largely backwards, 1918 had more extreme lockdowns. Even though they where not uniform nationwide. They had actual fines and up to 10 says of prison time for failing to follow mask mandate in SF. This was then copied by other cities in California and other states across the US. In most places they just shut down schools without any remote learning whatsoever. That said, the city vs country decide was much stronger before cars. We had less than 1/3 of todays population and large chunk of that was still living on single family farms.
    - geysersam 5y ago
      Please provide support for your claim that large parts of society were under lockdown in wide areas of the US and the world during the 1918 pandemic. I can find no support for that myself. This article from the university of Michigan describes the pandemic regulations in SF: https://www.influenzaarchive.org/cities/city-sanfrancisco.html# https://www.influenzaarchive.org/cities/city-sanfrancisco.ht... From what I understand: 1. There were no wide lockdowns. Theaters, dancehalls and schools closed temporarily. But there were nothing like the mandatory and enforced lockdowns we've seen across the globe the last couple of years (China, Spain, France, Belgium, Netherlands, etc). The state did not pay people money to stay at home from work, which we've seen in many countries the last couple of years. Closing dancehalls is not a lockdown. 2. Breaking the mask mandate did not lead to prison time like you insinuate. The article says most infringements lead to "a stern warning". 3. Despite the relatively harsh restrictions SF did not fare particularly well counting the number of deaths from the illness. I maintain my claim that it was *not* the scientific consensus before 2020 that wide swats of the population should be made to stay at home and not work as a response to an influenza pandemic.

Retric 5y ago

What specific difference are you thinking of? The US had plenty of local lockdowns in 1918, including such things as school by phone. Mask mandates, closing or minimum 20 foot separation between tables at restaurants etc. I agree it was a more local response, some locations closed bookstores others kept them open etc. But we only created the CDC in response to the Spanish flu, there simply wasn’t a national organization developed to handle pandemic response.

geysersam 5y ago
I don't believe there were enough telephone infrastructure to have school over phone for more than a very marginal part of the population in 1918. I'd like to be proven wrong. I'm talking about lockdowns. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_lockdowns https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_lockdowns > there simply wasn’t a national organization developed to handle pandemic response. Exactly. But not only that, our technical and economic capability to implement such lockdowns widely eclipse the society of 1918. These are enormous differences.
- Retric 5y ago
  I think you have it largely backwards, 1918 had more extreme lockdowns. Even though they where not uniform nationwide. They had actual fines and up to 10 says of prison time for failing to follow mask mandate in SF. This was then copied by other cities in California and other states across the US. In most places they just shut down schools without any remote learning whatsoever. That said, the city vs country decide was much stronger before cars. We had less than 1/3 of todays population and large chunk of that was still living on single family farms.
  - geysersam 5y ago
    Please provide support for your claim that large parts of society were under lockdown in wide areas of the US and the world during the 1918 pandemic. I can find no support for that myself. This article from the university of Michigan describes the pandemic regulations in SF: https://www.influenzaarchive.org/cities/city-sanfrancisco.html# https://www.influenzaarchive.org/cities/city-sanfrancisco.ht... From what I understand: 1. There were no wide lockdowns. Theaters, dancehalls and schools closed temporarily. But there were nothing like the mandatory and enforced lockdowns we've seen across the globe the last couple of years (China, Spain, France, Belgium, Netherlands, etc). The state did not pay people money to stay at home from work, which we've seen in many countries the last couple of years. Closing dancehalls is not a lockdown. 2. Breaking the mask mandate did not lead to prison time like you insinuate. The article says most infringements lead to "a stern warning". 3. Despite the relatively harsh restrictions SF did not fare particularly well counting the number of deaths from the illness. I maintain my claim that it was *not* the scientific consensus before 2020 that wide swats of the population should be made to stay at home and not work as a response to an influenza pandemic.