Woodstock Occurred During a Pandemic

https://www.aier.org/article/woodstock-occurred-in-the-middle-of-a-pandemic/


Not looking to start a debate! Believe me, I'm still hunkered down at home practicing social distancing, but I found this article interesting. I was just talking to DH last night about how I'm sad that it will probably be years before we get to see a concert again, and then I stumbled upon this article. Again, not trying to start drama, just thought-provoking to see the difference between then and now.

Re: Woodstock Occurred During a Pandemic

My friend posted this the other day and like I told him, everyone was high and didn’t know what was going on anyway

Re: Woodstock Occurred During a Pandemic

Thank you for sharing, this article brings up points that will be debated for years to come but here are my thoughts:

1. Its an Economic research/opinion piece put out by an economist who likely feels the shutdowns were/are exaggerated.

2. The flaw in the premise (in my opinion) is that it implies our current shutdown is based on the virus being just another flu. The coronavirus is not a flu, it is a pathogen that is novel (new) and hence no one knows how to treat it or deal with it. The closest comparison we have to C19 is SARS/MERS for which the governments involved did engage in extensive controls by creating travel restrictions and public health measures. Ebola and Zika, similarly, had they made their way into a community spread situation in the US, would likely have triggered a similar shutdown type response. But the pathogen was contained because it was easier to identify infected people and isolate them.

3. I dont think hospitals in 1968 experienced people dying in ER waiting rooms like what we saw in Italy and NYC. According to the article, 100,000 Americans died in a year from the 1068/1969 flu- we are only 3-4 months into the Covid 19 pandemic in the US and already close to 80K deaths.

When one city shut down as drastically as Wuhan did in January, followed by Lombardo, Italy a short time later...I think its clear that C19 was much more serious than health experts predicted. Now I am curious to see how Hong Kong responded to the flu outbreak initially and what kind of alarm bells they set off when the flu started spreading...

Just my thoughts...