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Why American life went on as normal during the killer pandemic of 1969
By Eric Spitznagel
May 16, 2020 | 10:23am | Updated
Enlarge Image
Thousands gather without a care at Woodstock in August 1969 despite a
deadly flu pandemic, while today we cower in place amid COVID-19.
Thousands gather without a care at Woodstock in August 1969 despite a
deadly flu pandemic, while today we cower in place amid COVID-19. Corbis
via Getty Images
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Patti Mulhearn Lydon, 68, doesn’t have rose-colored memories of
attending Woodstock in August 1969. The rock festival, which took place
over four days in Bethel, NY, mostly reminds her of being covered in mud
and daydreaming about a hot shower.
She was a 17-year-old high-school student from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania,
when she made the trek to Max Yasgur’s farm with her boyfriend Rod. For
three nights, she shared an outdoor bedroom with 300,000 other rock fans
from around the country, most of whom were probably not washing their
hands for the length of “Happy Birthday” — or at all.
“There was no food or water, but one of our guys cut an apple into
twenty-seven slices and we all shared it,” she said. At some point, a
garden hose from one of the farm’s neighbors was passed around and
strangers used it as a communal source for bathing and drinking, she said.
And all of this happened during a global pandemic in which over
one million people died.
Enlarge Image
At Woodstock, there was hardly enough food and water, let alone hand
washing or bathing.
Though Woodstock was not held during the peak months of the H3N2
pandemic (the first wave ended by early March 1969, and it didn’t flare
up again until November of that year), the filthy festival went ahead
when the virus was still active and had no known cure.The LIFE Picture
Collection via
H3N2 (or the “Hong Kong flu,” as it was more popularly known) was an
influenza strain that the New York Times described as “one of the worst
in the nation’s history.” The first case of H3N2, which evolved from the
H2N2 influenza strain that caused the 1957 pandemic, was reported in
mid-July 1968 in Hong Kong. By September, it had infected Marines
returning to the States from the Vietnam War. By mid-December, the Hong
Kong flu had arrived in all fifty states.
But schools were not shut down nationwide, other than a few dozen
because of too many sick teachers. Face masks weren’t required or even
common. Though Woodstock was not held during the peak months of the H3N2
pandemic (the first wave ended by early March 1969, and it didn’t flare
up again until November of that year), the festival went ahead when the
virus was still active and had no known cure.
“I wish they had social distancing at Woodstock,” jokes Lydon, who now
lives in Delray Beach, Florida, and works as a purchasing manager for
MDVIP, a network of primary care doctors. “You had to climb over people
to get anywhere.”
I wish they had social distancing at Woodstock. - Patti Lydon, who
attended the festival in 1969
“Life continued as normal,” said Jeffrey Tucker, the editorial director
for the American Institute for Economic Research. “But as with now, no
one knew for certain how deadly [the pandemic] would turn out to be.
Regardless, people went on with their lives.”
Which, he said, isn’t all that surprising. “That generation approached
viruses with calm, rationality and intelligence,” he said. “We left
disease mitigation to medical professionals, individuals and families,
rather than politics, politicians and government.”
While it’s way too soon to compare the numbers, H3N2 has so far proved
deadlier than COVID-19. Between 1968 and 1970, the Hong Kong flu killed
between an estimated one and four million, according to the CDC and
Encyclopaedia Britannica, with US deaths exceeding 100,000. As of this
writing, COVID-19 has killed more than 295,000 globally and around
83,000 in the United States, according to Johns Hopkins University. But
by all projections, the coronavirus will surpass H3N2’s body count even
with a global shutdown.
Aside from the different reactions to H3N2 and COVID-19, the
similarities between them are striking. Both viruses spread quickly and
cause upper respiratory symptoms including fever, cough and shortness of
breath. They infect mostly adults over 65 or those with underlying
medical conditions, but could strike people of any age.
Both pandemics didn’t spare the rich and famous — Hitchcock actress
Tallulah Bankhead and former CIA director Allen Dulles succumbed to
H3N2, while COVID-19 has taken the lives of singer-songwriter John Prine
and playwright Terrence McNally, among others. President Lyndon Johnson
and Vice President Humphrey both fell ill from H3N2 and recovered, as
did UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson from COVID-19 last month.
Both viruses infected animals — a 4-year-old Malayan tiger at the Bronx
Zoo tested positive for the coronavirus in early April, and in January
1969, the original Shamu at San Diego’s SeaWorld, along with two other
killer whales named Ramu and Kilroy, contracted the Hong Kong flu.
Enlarge Image
The H3N2 pandemic of 1969 took the lives of Hitchcock acress Tallulah
Bankhead (left) and former CIA director Allen Dulles.
The H3N2 pandemic of 1969 took the lives of Hitchcock actress Tallulah
Bankhead (left) and former CIA director Allen Dulles.Getty Images (2)
Both pandemics brought drama to outer space: During an Apollo 8 mission
in December 1968, commander Frank Borman came down with the Hong Kong
flu while in orbit. And in early April, three NASA astronauts returned
to Earth after seven months aboard the International Space Station, with
astronaut Jessica Meir remarking that it felt like coming home “to a
different planet.”
During both pandemics, horror stories abounded — from the bodies stored
in refrigerated trucks in New York last month to corpses stored in
subway tunnels in Germany during the H3N2 outbreak.
Those who had H3N2 and survived describe a health battle that sounds
eerily familiar to COVID. “The coughing and difficulty breathing were
the worst but it was the lethargy that kept me in bed,” said Jim Poling
Sr., the author of “Killer Flu: The World on the Brink of a Pandemic,”
who caught the virus while studying at Columbia University. “X-rays
after recovery showed scarring at the bottom of my left lung.”
Renee Ward, 53, remembers her entire family contracting the virus in
Greenville, NC, during Christmas of 1968. “My father got sick first,
quickly followed by me and my mother,” she said. But their symptoms were
mild, for the most part. “Christmas morning, I was trying to play with
my new kitchen set from Santa, while my mother watched from the couch
and cried because we couldn’t travel to be with my grandparents.”
Linda Murray Bullard, 60, from Chattanooga, Tenn., remembers visiting a
“super” grocery store with her mom just before Thanksgiving in 1968.
Days later, her mother was in bed with a fever, chills and dry cough.
“I turned 9 years old on December 5th, but because she was so ill we
didn’t celebrate,” said Bullard. “I just wanted her to feel better.”
Days before Christmas Eve, her 33-year-old mother went to an ER and was
diagnosed with the Hong Kong flu. She died shortly after.
The global fight to stop (or at least slow down) COVID-19 has brought
heavy restrictions on all aspects of public life, including restaurants,
bars, weddings, funerals, churches, movie theaters and gyms. Schools
have reverted to remote learning and most business now happens via Zoom.
The Grand Canyon is closed, as are all Disney parks and Las Vegas
casinos. Professional sports are on indefinite hold, including
Wimbledon, which canceled for the first time since World War II.
Enlarge Image
The Hong Kong flu sickened Shamu (left) and President Lyndon Johnson
(right) but didn’t shut down normal life.
The Hong Kong flu sickened Shamu (above) and President Johnson (right);
COVID-19 has also hit zoo animals and world leaders, including UK Prime
Minister Boris Johnson and the wife of Canadian Prime Minister, Justin
Trudeau.The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images; Alamy
How does this compare to the Hong Kong flu? Nathaniel Moir, a
postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of
Government, said there were few precautions taken during the H3N2
pandemic other than washing hands and staying home when sick.
“It was like the pandemic hadn’t even happened if you look for it in
history books,” he said. “I am still shocked at how differently people
addressed — or maybe even ignored it — in 1968 compared to 2020.”
The virus rarely made front-page news. A 1968 story in the Associated
Press warned that deaths caused by the Hong Kong flu “more than doubled
across the nation in the third week of December.” But the story was
buried on page 24. The New York Post didn’t publish any stories about
the pandemic in 1968, and in 1969, coverage was mostly minor, like
reports of newly married couples delaying honeymoons because of the
virus and the Yonkers police force calling in sick with the Hong Kong
flu during wage negotiations.
see also
Disney's theme parks may stay closed until 2021: analyst
A vaccine was soon developed — in August 1969, not long after Woodstock
— but the news of a cure didn’t get much media attention either.
It may seem like the world responded to the 1968 pandemic with a shrug
of indifference, but the different approaches may be down to a
generational divide, said Poling. In 1968, “we were confident with all
the advances in medicine. Measles, mumps, chickenpox, scarlet fever and
polio all had been brought under control,” he said.
Tucker remembers being taught as a child of the ’60s that “getting
viruses ultimately strengthened one’s immune system. One of my most
vivid memories is of a chickenpox party. The idea was that you should
get it and get it over with when you are young.”
Even with those relaxed ideas about viruses, the Hong Kong flu caught
the world by surprise. It was different from previous pandemics because
of how fast it spread, thanks largely to increased international air travel.
Much of our current thinking about infectious diseases in the modern era
changed because of the SARS outbreak of 2003, which “scared the hell out
of many people,” said Poling. “It’s the first time I recall people
wearing masks and trying to distance themselves from others,
particularly in situations where someone might cough or sneeze.”
The idea that a pandemic could be controlled with social distancing and
public lockdowns is a relatively new one, said Tucker. It was first
suggested in a 2006 study by New Mexico scientist Robert J. Glass, who
got the idea from his 14-year-old daughter’s science project.
Enlarge Image
Apollo 8’s Frank Borman (rightmost) became ill with H3N2 in December
1968 — in space — but quickly got better.
H3N2 even reached as far as outer space, with Apollo 8’s Frank Borman
(above right) becoming ill in December 1968.Getty Images
“Two government doctors, not even epidemiologists” — Richard Hatchett
and Carter Mecher, who worked for the Bush administration — “hatched the
idea [of using government-enforced social distancing] and hoped to try
it out on the next virus.” We are in effect, Tucker said, part of a
grand social experiment.
But the differences between how the world responded to two pandemics,
separated by 50 years, is more complicated than any single explanation.
“If I were 48 in 1968, I would have most likely served in World War II,”
said Moir. “I would have had a little brother who served in Korea, and
possibly might have a son or daughter fighting in Vietnam.” Death, he
said, was a bigger and in some ways more accepted part of American life.
The Hong Kong flu also arrived in a particularly volatile moment in
history. There was the race to land a man on the moon and political
assassinations and sexual liberation and the civil-rights movement.
Without 24/7 news coverage and social media vying for our attention, a
new strain of flu could hardly compete for the public’s attention.
But, even if people in 1968 had been told to stay home, it’s unlikely
they would’ve protested, Moir said. Dining out, for instance, was a rare
indulgence for most American families then. Today, “we spend as much
eating out as we do preparing food at home,” Moir said. A 2013 study by
market research firm NPD Group found that between the mid-1960s to the
late 2000s, middle-income households went from eating at home 92 percent
of the time to 69 percent of the time.
In 2020, we feel that being denied music festivals and restaurants is an
egregious attack on our liberty. “A big part of our freakout over
COVID-19 is a reaction to everything in this country that we’ve taken
for granted,” Moir said. “When it’s taken away, we lose our minds.”
It’s a point echoed by Lydon. Her best memories of that wild weekend
aren’t the sweaty crowds or the music — Jimi Hendrix’s electric guitar
scared the “begeebers” out of her, she said — but the quiet moments
afterwards back at a parent’s house in New Jersey.
“I ate the best grilled-cheese sandwich and drank the best lemonade,”
she said. And “I took the best shower I ever remember.”
--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
http://www.brooklyn-living.com
Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and extermination camps,
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
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