How would the world have reacted to "Covid-89" or "Covid-99"?

[nw1]

One thing I'm curious about is how the world would have reacted to Covid in an era before home working was practically possible.

Let's say two scenarios, a Covid-like virus with similar death and serious illness rate emerged in late 1989 or late 1999, peaking in 1990 and 2000.

I pick those years as they are a round number of years ago, and both occurred before home working was practicable for most. In 1989 only very specialised institutions could have used the internet, and in 1999, while the internet was widespread in work places, it was still not widespread at home, and for those that had it at home, it was slow dial-up connections so working from home would be difficult in most cases. And of course the likes of Zoom, etc, were many years in the future.

So the implication would therefore have been that most people would have had to continue to travel into work, including railway commuting, despite Covid - as the effects on the economy of a literal shutdown would have been catastrophic. This would presumably then led to to a larger and more alarming initial spike, as spread would have been inevitable - but perhaps also the whole episode would have been over more quickly?

Also, without the likes of Zoom and so on, there would have been no facility for people to socialise virtually. Concerns about loneliness and mental health would, perhaps, have led to less restrictions on social gatherings than happened in 2020.

Perhaps non essential businesses such as pubs, restaurants and the like would still have closed.

What about the general approach to the acceptability of lockdown in previous eras? I say that as the 1968 pandemic (albeit less severe than Covid) attracted virtually no restrictions at all, and 1990 is almost half-way back to 1968.

Would be interesting to hear thoughts about this. I don't want this to become an "axe grinding" thread (either pro- or anti-restriction) but rather an objective discussion of what might have happened in 1990 or 2000 had a virus with identical characteristics to Covid-19 arose.

I also recognise that in 1990 and 2000 we had perhaps the two most notable post-war prime ministers of the UK, but again axe-grinding against Thatcher or Blair isn't really what I'm looking for. More interested in the global response, but any objective comments on the UK politics of the time would be fine.

 

[Crossover]

WFH aside, there also wasn't social media back then. In of itself, I think that would have made something of a difference

 

[pdeaves]

There was one thing common in 1990/2000 that you don't mention. People generally were less averse to using a telephone to talk to each other then.

 

[Cdd89]

I don’t think we can rule out the possibility that, pre-WFH, workers would have just stayed home and even greater economic shocks incurred.

Other changes since then included:

• Increased appetite for taking on new debt / QE as a method for doing so, and the belief (since we got away with this in 2008) that we could do so with no consequences. Without public acceptance of this, a furlough scheme lasting 18 months would have been impossible.
• Additional health devolution, which made politicisation and point scoring between nations inevitable if the respective parties in power were different.

 

[greyman42]

Regarding covid-89, i don't think there would of been a lockdown as that generation would simply not have put up with it.
For whatever reason, this generation seemed all too happy to go along with it without asking any questions.

 

[nw1]

I don’t think we can rule out the possibility that, pre-WFH, workers would have just stayed home and even greater economic shocks incurred.

Perhaps, but I would imagine that the economic effects of completely stopping almost all work for three months globally in, say, spring 1990 (and for perhaps 4 or 5 months in winter 1990/91) would have been so catastrophic that no-one would have countenanced it - unless we were talking about a virus a few orders of magnitude more serious, such as smallpox, plague, etc.

Not sure if there are any economists on here who could comment in a more expert way as to whether the world economy could withstand a multi-month lockdown with no work-from-home option.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 May 2022 ==

There was one thing common in 1990/2000 that you don't mention. People generally were less averse to using a telephone to talk to each other then.

Perhaps, though there is no face to face contact - I would argue that, while not a substitute for real physical contact, things like Zoom are rather better for maintaining some form of social contact than phone calls. Also less expensive (as Zoom calls have a time limit of 40 mins, and you're unlikely to be metered for data usage these days on a wifi network) - a long phone call in 1990 would probably have been very expensive indeed.

 

[duncanp]

Regarding covid-89, i don't think there would of been a lockdown as that generation would simply not have put up with it.
For whatever reason, this generation seemed all too happy to go along with it without asking any questions.

Regarding COVID-89, Margaret Thatcher was still the Prime Minister, and she wouldn't have been so easily spooked by the blatant scaremongering and lies from the likes of SAGE, Devi Sridhar, Susan Michie, Fake SAGE and all the other locktivist bores who made our lives such a misery.

She certainly wouldn't have tolerated Whitty and Vallance trying to influence government policy - she would have put them in their places and told them that they are there to advise the government.

And she would have understood the economic impact and long term cost of some of the lockdown measures and reacted accordingly - I think if COVID had occurred during her term of office, we would have seen measures similar to those in Sweden.

 

[ExRes]

If we'd had a 1989 covid I wonder whether it would have registered any more than, for example, a bad flu epidemic. It seems to me that care home deaths were the biggest driver of the panic that enveloped this country, in the 80s both my grandmothers were resident in homes, dedicated homes staffed by NHS employees, clean homes with decent food and excellent standards of care, what did we have in 2020? privately owned homes existing for profits with foreign staff shipped in on the lowest pay rates possible, would the government response have been the same if those deaths hadn't occurred? I don't think it would

 

[bramling]

One thing I'm curious about is how the world would have reacted to Covid in an era before home working was practically possible.

Let's say two scenarios, a Covid-like virus with similar death and serious illness rate emerged in late 1989 or late 1999, peaking in 1990 and 2000.

I pick those years as they are a round number of years ago, and both occurred before home working was practicable for most. In 1989 only very specialised institutions could have used the internet, and in 1999, while the internet was widespread in work places, it was still not widespread at home, and for those that had it at home, it was slow dial-up connections so working from home would be difficult in most cases. And of course the likes of Zoom, etc, were many years in the future.

So the implication would therefore have been that most people would have had to continue to travel into work, including railway commuting, despite Covid - as the effects on the economy of a literal shutdown would have been catastrophic. This would presumably then led to to a larger and more alarming initial spike, as spread would have been inevitable - but perhaps also the whole episode would have been over more quickly?

Also, without the likes of Zoom and so on, there would have been no facility for people to socialise virtually. Concerns about loneliness and mental health would, perhaps, have led to less restrictions on social gatherings than happened in 2020.

Perhaps non essential businesses such as pubs, restaurants and the like would still have closed.

What about the general approach to the acceptability of lockdown in previous eras? I say that as the 1968 pandemic (albeit less severe than Covid) attracted virtually no restrictions at all, and 1990 is almost half-way back to 1968.

Would be interesting to hear thoughts about this. I don't want this to become an "axe grinding" thread (either pro- or anti-restriction) but rather an objective discussion of what might have happened in 1990 or 2000 had a virus with identical characteristics to Covid-19 arose.

I also recognise that in 1990 and 2000 we had perhaps the two most notable post-war prime ministers of the UK, but again axe-grinding against Thatcher or Blair isn't really what I'm looking for. More interested in the global response, but any objective comments on the UK politics of the time would be fine.

I’d say one of the great intrigues of all this is how Thatcher or Blair might have reacted. Even if the response was similar (which I don’t think it would have been), I think the communications would have been more polished, and there wouldn’t have been much of the flapping in the wind we have seen from Johnson. I think there would also have been a much greater appreciation of the consequences of some of the decisions - stuff like the stamp duty cut for example has turned out to be utter madness.

I’d also say it’s pretty certain both of the above would have more strongly pushed a “keep calm and let’s get back to normal” the moment the vaccines had been rolled out. Johnson by contrast has let things drift.

 

[Enthusiast]

WFH allowed only a reasonably small proportion of the population to continue working. Anybody who does not work in an office generally cannot work from home. That includes workers in transport, haulage, construction, building maintenance, hospitality, entertainment, retail – the list of people who had to go out to work is quite extensive.

The principle damage to the economy during the pandemic was caused by the forced closure of those businesses and services (coupled with paying staff under the furlough scheme) and constraints on the movements of individuals which meant they could not spend money. No other pandemic in history has been approached with the sort of severe restrictions seen during the Covid outbreak. I was initially baffled to understand why this was. In 1968 there was a worldwide ‘flu outbreak. I remember it well. It resulted in a large number of deaths in the UK. Not as many as Covid caused, but we have to bear in mind (1) that the global population was considerably smaller (the global population has doubled and UK population increased by more than 20% since then) and (2) that it is now becoming evident that the number of deaths allegedly caused purely by the virus was probably wildly overstated. But what I also remember is that it didn’t get a mention in Parliament and was barely mentioned in the media. Everybody knew it was about. We were told to avoid people who were coughing and sneezing. Older people took a little more care. And that was it. There were no daily reports of “new cases”, no hospitalisation numbers, no death numbers, nothing. Certainly no testing, no masks, no “social distancing”, no self-isolation, no closures of businesses, no stupid signs in shops, on trains and on buses, no “2 metre” measurements on floors and pavements, no restrictions on the numbers in shops, no queuing in the rain on the pavement, no banging saucepan lids on Thursday nights to thank NHS staff for doing their job. In short, life just went on as normal. I do not believe that, had WFH been widely possible, it would have been undertaken because getting out and about and mixing with people simply wasn’t seen as a big issue.

I accept that the recent pandemic was probably more severe than the 1968 outbreak. But nobody knew, at the outset, how the 1968 disease would eventually pan out. So profound is the difference between the way each of them was treated that it must be wondered why. I have my own suspicions. Anybody else?

 

[kristiang85]

If we'd had a 1989 covid I wonder whether it would have registered any more than, for example, a bad flu epidemic. It seems to me that care home deaths were the biggest driver of the panic that enveloped this country, in the 80s both my grandmothers were resident in homes, dedicated homes staffed by NHS employees, clean homes with decent food and excellent standards of care, what did we have in 2020? privately owned homes existing for profits with foreign staff shipped in on the lowest pay rates possible, would the government response have been the same if those deaths hadn't occurred? I don't think it would

Exactly. Back then we wouldn't have had the tech for affordable mass testing or genome sequencing, so we would have had a lot less of the scary numbers to start with. And without social media, no traction of fear would have been established.

I honestly think it would have been put down to a bad winter, and eventually someone would have pinned it to a novel coronavirus.

 

[Bantamzen]

WFH allowed only a reasonably small proportion of the population to continue working. Anybody who does not work in an office generally cannot work from home. That includes workers in transport, haulage, construction, building maintenance, hospitality, entertainment, retail – the list of people who had to go out to work is quite extensive.

The principle damage to the economy during the pandemic was caused by the forced closure of those businesses and services (coupled with paying staff under the furlough scheme) and constraints on the movements of individuals which meant they could not spend money. No other pandemic in history has been approached with the sort of severe restrictions seen during the Covid outbreak. I was initially baffled to understand why this was. In 1968 there was a worldwide ‘flu outbreak. I remember it well. It resulted in a large number of deaths in the UK. Not as many as Covid caused, but we have to bear in mind (1) that the global population was considerably smaller (the global population has doubled and UK population increased by more than 20% since then) and (2) that it is now becoming evident that the number of deaths allegedly caused purely by the virus was probably wildly overstated. But what I also remember is that it didn’t get a mention in Parliament and was barely mentioned in the media. Everybody knew it was about. We were told to avoid people who were coughing and sneezing. Older people took a little more care. And that was it. There were no daily reports of “new cases”, no hospitalisation numbers, no death numbers, nothing. Certainly no testing, no masks, no “social distancing”, no self-isolation, no closures of businesses, no stupid signs in shops, on trains and on buses, no “2 metre” measurements on floors and pavements, no restrictions on the numbers in shops, no queuing in the rain on the pavement, no banging saucepan lids on Thursday nights to thank NHS staff for doing their job. In short, life just went on as normal. I do not believe that, had WFH been widely possible, it would have been undertaken because getting out and about and mixing with people simply wasn’t seen as a big issue.

I accept that the recent pandemic was probably more severe than the 1968 outbreak. But nobody knew, at the outset, how the 1968 disease would eventually pan out. So profound is the difference between the way each of them was treated that it must be wondered why. I have my own suspicions. Anybody else?

During the pandemic @yorkie posted a video of a Swedish (I think) professor giving a lecture on how risk perception can change, based on how much risk a population is exposed to. So for example in Europe, the general risk of crime, war, poverty & indeed deadly diseases is considered quite low (or at least was in 2019). As a result when covid broke out, and politicians switched on full panic modes, the populations previously shielded from the feeling of risk were then also panicked disproportionately, hence the general acceptance of all the rules & restrictions that said politicians could dream up with little pushback. Whereas say in central African countries, they have had much more exposure to the various risks, and as such their perception of covid-based risk might be somewhat lower. For me this rings very true, as a society we do seem to becoming more risk adverse, and less able to deal with it when it occurs.

Then of course you have the issue of how information was then, and now is spread. 40, 50, 60 years ago news came from semi-regular television & radio broadcasts, or through newspapers. There were no 24/7 live feeds, no social media to pick up snippets of information & make it go viral globally. So media outlets had time to fact check, they didn't feel the need to often offer personal opinion, and the general public weren't fed a constant stream of social media tittle tattle. If you ever watch the lifespan of something going viral on social media, you'll see its like an electronic form of Chinese Whispers, except it can reach millions in microseconds, and evolve in almost a quick a time. This wouldn't be so bad if people actually did a bit of their own fact checking. In a recent survey, it was found that only 11.96% of Google searches led to users following links on Page 2, & although this didn't include mobile devices, it still demonstrates that a lot of people take more or less what is shoved directly on their screens as fact. So misinformation, or at least incorrectly interpreted information can travel fast so long as it makes the top of a search engine query, or go viral on at least one social media platform. This then feeds into an exaggerated perception of risk. And of course pre-internet, this simple wasn't possible.

 

[scarby]

During the pandemic @yorkie posted a video of a Swedish (I think) professor giving a lecture on how risk perception can change, based on how much risk a population is exposed to. So for example in Europe, the general risk of crime, war, poverty & indeed deadly diseases is considered quite low (or at least was in 2019). As a result when covid broke out, and politicians switched on full panic modes, the populations previously shielded from the feeling of risk were then also panicked disproportionately, hence the general acceptance of all the rules & restrictions that said politicians could dream up with little pushback. Whereas say in central African countries, they have had much more exposure to the various risks, and as such their perception of covid-based risk might be somewhat lower. For me this rings very true, as a society we do seem to becoming more risk adverse, and less able to deal with it when it occurs.

Then of course you have the issue of how information was then, and now is spread. 40, 50, 60 years ago news came from semi-regular television & radio broadcasts, or through newspapers. There were no 24/7 live feeds, no social media to pick up snippets of information & make it go viral globally. So media outlets had time to fact check, they didn't feel the need to often offer personal opinion, and the general public weren't fed a constant stream of social media tittle tattle. If you ever watch the lifespan of something going viral on social media, you'll see its like an electronic form of Chinese Whispers, except it can reach millions in microseconds, and evolve in almost a quick a time. This wouldn't be so bad if people actually did a bit of their own fact checking. In a recent survey, it was found that only 11.96% of Google searches led to users following links on Page 2, & although this didn't include mobile devices, it still demonstrates that a lot of people take more or less what is shoved directly on their screens as fact. So misinformation, or at least incorrectly interpreted information can travel fast so long as it makes the top of a search engine query, or go viral on at least one social media platform. This then feeds into an exaggerated perception of risk. And of course pre-internet, this simple wasn't possible.

This ↑↑↑

Also, it is worth noting that this would apply to news coming out of China too. There is still a lot we don't know about the protests of 1989, so it is likely that information coming out of Wuhan would have been limited or even non-existent, and this in turn could well have meant that European countries would not have been panicked by reports from China.










.

 

[nw1]

During the pandemic @yorkie posted a video of a Swedish (I think) professor giving a lecture on how risk perception can change, based on how much risk a population is exposed to. So for example in Europe, the general risk of crime, war, poverty & indeed deadly diseases is considered quite low (or at least was in 2019).]

With the caveat that Covid was rather more dangerous than the earlier outbreaks, I have heard theories that one reason why the 1968 (and 1958) pandemics did not elicit a response was that WWII was a relatively recent memory, and thus these pandemics were perhaps compared against WWII and thus seen, relatively speaking, as less bad.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

I honestly think it would have been put down to a bad winter

Isn't this pretty much exactly what happened in winter 1999 / 2000?

 

[deltic]

The Spanish flu outbreak may be more useful comparison. Here many US cities used widespread lockdowns to compact its spread, required mask wearing and home quarantine of people infected. In the UK mask wearing was adopted by some, death statistics were published by local papers and certain areas closed schools. So it is likely some measures would have been put in place to stop public gathering and require mask wearing.

 

[MikeWM]

The Spanish flu outbreak may be more useful comparison. Here many US cities used widespread lockdowns to compact its spread, required mask wearing and home quarantine of people infected. In the UK mask wearing was adopted by some, death statistics were published by local papers and certain areas closed schools. So it is likely some measures would have been put in place to stop public gathering and require mask wearing.

However the Spanish flu was considerably more severe than Covid, by at least a factor of 10. The age profile of those worst affected was dramatically different too, with young adults faring worst.

The general consensus afterwards, when everyone calmed down and reflected, was that masks had achieved nothing (sound familiar?).

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation...ring-the-1918-flu-pandemic-they-were-useless/

Through the attempts to make wearing masks seem normal, positioned at stores alongside everyday things such as tobacco, mustache grooming and dancing, the grim truth persisted.

“The masks worn by millions were useless as designed and could not prevent influenza,” Barry wrote. “Only preventing exposure to the virus could.”

But one of the biggest differences is that, quite correctly, the Spanish Flu doesn't appear to have been a political issue. If you look through the Hansard of the time then there is barely a mention anywhere. And - as far as I can tell - no-one accused Lloyd George of causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people by not doing all sorts of things to try to stop a respiratory disease from spreading.

 

[brad465]

I reckon in 1989-1999 the concept of asymptomatic transmission would not have existed/been widely believed, which would have seen far less restrictions, as many of them seemed to be on the basis that we assumed every other person was a viral threat just because they exist at this point in time.

There would also have been far less capability to mass produce and conduct testing like we did during covid, which would have meant restrictions were even more disruptive and thus better off avoided.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Jun 2022 ==

Other changes since then included:

• Increased appetite for taking on new debt / QE as a method for doing so, and the belief (since we got away with this in 2008) that we could do so with no consequences. Without public acceptance of this, a furlough scheme lasting 18 months would have been impossible.

This is the elephant in the room in the world economy right now; it's hard enough getting senior economists to admit the consequences of QE, let alone the impacts of its turbo drive in response to covid.

 

[deltic]

However the Spanish flu was considerably more severe than Covid, by at least a factor of 10. The age profile of those worst affected was dramatically different too, with young adults faring worst.

The general consensus afterwards, when everyone calmed down and reflected, was that masks had achieved nothing (sound familiar?).

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation...ring-the-1918-flu-pandemic-they-were-useless/


But one of the biggest differences is that, quite correctly, the Spanish Flu doesn't appear to have been a political issue. If you look through the Hansard of the time then there is barely a mention anywhere. And - as far as I can tell - no-one accused Lloyd George of causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people by not doing all sorts of things to try to stop a respiratory disease from spreading.

This is missing the point, the question is how in 1989 or 1999 would we have reacted to a Covid outbreak.

We would have seen the Italian health services collapsing due to the new virus with more deaths than happened in 2020 as health facilities would not have been as advanced. This would have led to a national response, unlike at the time of the Spanish flu when matters were left to the local level, which would have probably seen the banning of all mass gatherings outside the workplace which would probably have led to the closure of much of the leisure and hospitality sector.

As a scientist Margaret Thatcher would definitely have taken seriously the advice of her scientific advisors just as she did with the Ozone layer and followed their advice whatever it would have been at the time.

 

[duncanp]

As a scientist Margaret Thatcher would definitely have taken seriously the advice of her scientific advisors just as she did with the Ozone layer and followed their advice whatever it would have been at the time.

But she would have questioned their modelling, and the figures on which that advice was based.

She would have understood the difference between the worst case scenario and the most likely scenario, and the difference between deaths "with COVID" and deaths "from COVID"

Part of the problem with COVID was that SAGE deliberately presented the worst case scenario as the most likely scenario, in order to panic Boris Johnson into introducing more restrictions, or the prevent him from easing restrictions.

Multiple times during the pandemic it was shown there was a wide divergence between the actual figures, and even the best case scenario presented by SAGE.

 

[deltic]

Agreed, she would have been all over the details and asked lots of pertinent questions. She would have respected them and they her unlike the situation with Boris

 

[duncanp]

Agreed, she would have been all over the details and asked lots of pertinent questions. She would have respected them and they her unlike the situation with Boris

The scientists would have known that they couldn't pull the wool over her eyes, and that she would have wanted to make sure that the epidemiological benefits (in controlling the outbreak) would outwiegh the huge economic costs (of which she would have been aware)

 

[MikeWM]

We would have seen the Italian health services collapsing due to the new virus with more deaths than happened in 2020 as health facilities would not have been as advanced.

Would it have done though? We were told in country after country that this was going to happen, but did it actually do so anywhere? Look at the US states for example - a wide variety of measures, including no legal measures at all, were attempted by different states. The prophets of doom kept warning about this being about to happen in place after place, but I don't believe it actually did.

Also, while I know literally nothing about Italian healthcare, if it is anything like the UK then there would have been significantly more capacity (in terms of hospital beds, etc.) available 30 or 40 years ago than now. That may have made a significant difference.

Plus the media in 1999, and moreso 1989, were more measured than now. I can't imagine they'd be putting out a 'panic' message in the way we see today, and the Government may have felt more confident in sticking to their existing pandemic plans rather than ripping them up and replacing them with measures that previously had been dismissed as ineffective.

This would have led to a national response, unlike at the time of the Spanish flu when matters were left to the local level, which would have probably seen the banning of all mass gatherings outside the workplace which would probably have led to the closure of much of the leisure and hospitality sector.

Which is exactly the kind of thing we knew was ineffective until mid-March 2020. Here's the 2011 pandemic plan:
https://assets.publishing.service.g...ads/attachment_data/file/213717/dh_131040.pdf

4.21 There is very limited evidence that restrictions on mass gatherings will have any significant effect on influenza virus transmission. Large public gatherings or crowded
events where people may be in close proximity are an important indicator of ‘normality’ and may help maintain public morale during a pandemic. The social and economic
consequences of advising cancellation or postponement of large gatherings are likely to be considerable for event organisers, contributors and participants. There is also a lack
of scientific evidence on the impact of internal travel restrictions on transmission and attempts to impose such restrictions would have wide-reaching implications for business
and welfare.
4.22 For these reasons, the working presumption will be that Government will not impose any such restrictions. The emphasis will instead be on encouraging all those who have
symptoms to follow the advice to stay at home and avoid spreading their illness. However, local organisers may decide to cancel or postpone events in a pandemic
fearing economic loss through poor attendances, and the public themselves may decide not to mix in crowds, or use public transport if other options are available.

and yes, that was for a flu pandemic, but in terms of transmission, age profile and pretty much every other way, Covid was effectively the same as a flu pandemic.

While I'm quoting from that, here's the section on masks:

4.15 Although there is a perception that the wearing of facemasks by the public in the community and household setting may be beneficial, there is in fact very little evidence of widespread benefit from their use in this setting. Facemasks must be worn correctly, changed frequently, removed properly, disposed of safely and used in combination with good respiratory, hand, and home hygiene behaviour in order for them to achieve the intended benefit. Research also shows that compliance with these recommended behaviours when wearing facemasks for prolonged periods reduces over time.

and border closures:

4.18 The Foreign and Commonwealth Office will issue advice regarding travel to affected countries. There are no plans to attempt to close borders in the event of an influenza pandemic. The UK generally has a high level of international connectivity, and so is likely to be one of the earlier countries to receive infectious individuals. Modelling
suggests that imposing a 90% restriction on all air travel to the UK at the point a pandemic emerges would only delay the peak of a pandemic wave by one to two
weeks. Even a 99.9% travel restriction might delay a pandemic wave by only two months. During 2009 it became clear that the pandemic virus had already spread widely
before international authorities were alerted, suggesting that in any case the point of pandemic emergence had been missed by several weeks. The economic, political and
social consequences of border closures would also be very substantial, including risks to the secure supply of food, pharmaceuticals and other supplies.

I see no reason to assume that this plan, based on years of evidence, would have been thrown away in 1999 or 1989 in favour of things that 'felt' like they would make a difference but with evidence already in that they wouldn't. The outlier here is that in 2020, for whatever reason, we did.

 

[Cdd89]

Plus the media in 1999, and moreso 1989, were more measured than now. I can't imagine they'd be putting out a 'panic' message in the way we see today

The other factor is that without social media, it would have been harder for the panic to spread quite as quickly as it did. A delay of about two weeks would have meant that by the time people accepted action, hospitalisations would have been on the decrease anyway.

The other difference is that we would have had slower and possibly less effective vaccines. While this would have caused many more deaths, whether that would have prolonged the pandemic is less certain though, given that restrictions continued long after the vulnerable had been vaccinated.

 

[The exile]

Regarding covid-89, i don't think there would of been a lockdown as that generation would simply not have put up with it.
For whatever reason, this generation seemed all too happy to go along with it without asking any questions.

Which particular bit of the generation ? The 1989 “young” are the ones now in power…

 

[Mag_seven]

There is still a lot we don't know about the protests of 1989, so it is likely that information coming out of Wuhan would have been limited or even non-existent, and this in turn could well have meant that European countries would not have been panicked by reports from China.

And of course we would not have heard about Chinese "lockdowns" so would have been less inclined to implement them.

 

[nw1]

Which particular bit of the generation ? The 1989 “young” are the ones now in power…

Mind you it wouldn't be the 1989 young who would have dominated public opinion, any more than the current younger generation dominate current public opinion. The average year of birth of an adult of 1989 would be around 1940 - so essentially the electorate was dominated by pre-boomers and baby boomers.

 

[AY1975]

If WFH wouldn't have been possible to the same extent in 1989/99 as it is today, then a global pandemic in those days might have led to the already severe road congestion getting even worse as a lot of commuters would have switched from using public transport to driving because they would have felt less vulnerable in their own cars, even if their workplaces were in city centres where there was nowhere to park legally so they would have had no choice but to park illegally and risk getting stung with a fixed penalty notice or even clamped or towed away.

A lot of employers and employees would have pressed local councils to relax parking restrictions in town and city centres but to no avail.

The government and local councils would also probably have tried to encourage car sharing, but people would have been reluctant to do so both for fear of getting infected from their colleague with whom they were travelling and because they would have to go out of their way to pick them up and drop them off.

It might also have led to more people cycling to work, though.

In recent years flexible working hours, rather than traditional fixed hours, have become more common although some workplaces have been doing that for years. A Covid-89 or Covid-99 pandemic might have meant that the flexitime revolution would have happened earlier than it did as a lot of commuters would have wanted to stagger their hours so that they could travel on less crowded buses and trains.

 

[greyman42]

The government and local councils would also probably have tried to encourage car sharing, but people would have been reluctant to do so both for fear of getting infected from their colleague with whom they were travelling and because they would have to go out of their way to pick them up and drop them off.

In 1989 i don't think there would of been the irrational fear, that we have just had, of a virus with over a 99.9 % survival rate.

 

[Bikeman78]

In 1989 i don't think there would of been the irrational fear, that we have just had, of a virus with over a 99.9 % survival rate.

I agree. A lot of the fear was stoked up by 24 hour news and social media. My granny was 70 in 1989. I doubt that she would have been bothered by it, having lived through world war two with bombs raining down! Now that would have been scary.