The subsequent 1968 influenza pandemic—or “Hong Kong flu” or “Mao flu” as some western tabloids dubbed it—would have an even more dramatic impact, killing more than 30 000 individuals in the UK and 100 000 people in the USA, with half the deaths among individuals younger than 65 years—the reverse of COVID-19 deaths in the current pandemic. Yet, while at the height of the outbreak in December, 1968, The New York Times described the pandemic as “one of the worst in the nation's history”, there were few school closures and businesses, for the most, continued to operate as normal.
The relative unconcern about two of the largest influenza pandemics of the 20th century—the Encyclopaedia Britannica estimates that the 1968 pandemic, due to an H3N2 influenza virus, was responsible for between 1 million to 4 million deaths globally—presents a marked contrast and, to some critics, a rebuke to today's response to COVID-19 and the heightened responses to outbreaks of other novel pathogens, such as avian and swine influenza. “When hysteria is rife, we might try some history”, opined Simon Jenkins in an article in The Guardian titled “Why I'm taking the coronavirus hype with a pinch of salt”. “The [1968] pandemic raged over three years, yet is largely forgotten today”, commented The Wall Street Journal, “a testament to how societies are now approaching a similar crisis in a much different way”.
The ultimate testament to the supposed stoicism of earlier generations, according to this line of thought, is the 1918–19 influenza pandemic, in which at least 50 million people worldwide perished, but which resulted in few public monuments and was largely “forgotten” by the collectivity of society.
