What's different this time?

As a young adult, I lived through two pandemics, H2N2 (Asian flu) 1957-58 and H3N2 (Hong Kong Flu) 1968-69. In 1957 when the U.S. population was 172 million, that virus caused 116,000 American deaths. My wife, a schoolteacher at the time, contacted it and is still by my side today. It came and went with scarcely a notice. In 1968 when the population had risen to 200 million H2N3 caused 100,000 American deaths. Again, no panic or hysteria, the Detroit Tigers won the World Series, Joe Namath's New York Jets won Super Bowl 3 and the nation's flower children even threw an enormous party at Woodstock, New York. Based on the U.S. population during those two pandemics, those two outbreaks were equally deadly to COVID-19 but without the panic, economic devastation and suspicious political influences. What has changed in 52 years to cause today's reaction to a disease from which 98% of those contacting it fully recover?

Robert Haase

St. Charles