Muh Muh Muh My Corona (virus)

It calls it the "1918-19 pandemic strain," so maybe it's accounting for both.

Modeling influenza epidemics and pandemics: insights into the future of swine flu (H1N1)

 

Kind of my point. The first part of the Spanish Flu they took steps to prevent the spread, but then reopened too soon. We're taking steps to prevent the spread, which I think accounts for the sub 1 Rt number. I'm in over my head trying to read an academic journal entry on the spread of disease, so I have no idea if they broke it down by time. But it is a little apples to oranges if we haven't completed the run of Coronavirus yet.

 

Given the state of information transmission back then, exactly how effective could they have been at getting on top of things early?

I suspect (but really don't know) that despite the administration's woefulness, the nation as a whole jumped into action in a reasonably swift matter this time. Always could have been better, of course, but compared to 1918 (when you only knew a hurricane was coming after it was already on top of you) . . . .

And regarding re-opening, it seems most places aren't just throwing open the doors willy-nilly. They're doing it not just in phases, but with plenty of restrictions as well. How does that compare to 1918?

 

We did, but I'm curious what we'll see when we come out of SIP. I don't want to be all DOOOOOOOOOM! about it and sincerely hope we don't see spikes (that are not the result of just doing more testing), but I think we need to see where we stand in 2021 before we can do apt comparisons.

 

But a lot of the key unknowns could have been known if the governments had done their jobs better (especially on testing & contact tracing), so the existence of unknowns doesn't let them off the hook. This applies more to the federal government than the states, but once it became clear how the feds were going to operate, a lot of the states could've stepped up quicker too.

 

And at this point, at least 2 states (Ga and Fla) have made it clear that they don’t want to know the whole truth.

 

St. Louis stayed the fuck home.

This chart of the 1918 Spanish flu shows why social distancing works

 

They didn't hold a parade with 200,000 people, for one thing. They banned large gatherings (good) and closed government businesses that attracted large gatherings (good again).

Did they close private businesses? Story just says they "staggered work shifts." That's a far cry from stay the fuck home. Unemployment rates in 1918-19 were historically low (1.4 percent), so I think not.

The First Measured Century: Book: Section 2.12

And the St. Louis mortality rate for 1918 was still higher than many other cities (Chicago, Seattle, St. Paul, Portland, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Detroit, Indianapolis, Atlanta, etc.). I wonder what happened in Pittsburgh, which had a mortality rate 25 percent higher than Philadelphia in 1918.

https://www.stlouisfed.org/~/media/...ment/research-reports/pandemic_flu_report.pdf