[NEBO]

Swine flu, Asian flu were not a big deal where I grew up. I had chicken pox a year after this Asian flu, and I remember that. I do not remember hearing about Asian flu or Swine flu until this year. All of a sudden there were dangerous pandemics. I had mumps a year or two after chicken pox and I remember that. I never had the flu back then, not at all. We had colds. A friend had Whooping Cough, her cough was so loud, you never forget. But she got over it, no problem, and no one else caught it. We didn’t have vaxx for it. We didn’t have vaxx for chicken pox, mumps, or measles back then. We never had small pox vaxx and it wasn’t declared eradicated until 1977.

[Nateman]

Ike seldom gets the credit he deserves. It’s like he was an invisible President.

[T-Bird45]

Great article with interesting history, perspectives, and contrasts to the last year. Since I turned 2 years old early in 1957, I have no living memory of the event and can’t even recall my parents making a big deal of it later when I was old enough to notice. I do have a strong memory of their concerns with the typical childhood diseases of the time that had not been addressed by vaccines by the time I got the actual diseases in the early 60s. I definitely have a strong memory of going to take the polio vaccine via a sugar cube one Sunday after church. Always interesting the stuff you remember as a child and when those memories start forming.

[goodnesswins]

I believe my mother had this Asian Flu...I was six, my siblings 5 and 3...and I remember her being in bed really sick for several days...but don’t remember much else.

[kaktuskid]

The Hong Kong Flu of 68-69 was pretty rough too- but we still went to the moon and rolled in the mud in Woodstock

[WildHighlander57]

From the article:

“It has become commonplace to describe the speed with which vaccines were devised for Covid-19 as unprecedented. But it was not. The first New York Times report of the outbreak in Hong Kong—three paragraphs on page 3—was on April 17, 1957. By July 26, little more than three months later, doctors at Fort Ord, Calif., began to inoculate recruits to the military.

Surgeon General Leroy Burney announced on August 15 that the vaccine was to be allocated to states according to population size but distributed by the manufacturers through their customary commercial networks. Approximately 4 million one-milliliter doses were released in August, 9 million in September and 17 million in October.

This amounted to enough vaccine for just 17% of the population, and vaccine efficacy was found to range from 53% to 60%. But the net result of Hilleman’s rapid response to the Asian flu was to limit the excess mortality suffered in the U.S.”

it took 4 to 6 months from the time of the outbreak in Asia to the Asia flu shot to be available in the US.

It took 12 months from the time of the outbreak in China to the Wuhan virus shot to be available in the US.

[Fester Chugabrew]

Sacrificing life and liberty to the god of safety.

[Albion Wilde]

When seeking historical analogies for Covid-19, commentators have referred more often to the catastrophic 1918-19 “Spanish influenza” than to the flu pandemic of 1957-58. Yet the later episode deserves to be much better known, not just because the public health threat was a closer match to our own but because American society at the time was better prepared—culturally, institutionally and politically—to deal with it.

The reason it was not emphasized is that a Republican was President, and he managed a difficult challenge very well. When the Spanish flu epidemic had occurred, Democrat Woodrow Wilson had been in office. The media just couldn't have Republican Dwight Eisenhower succeed where Wilson had failed.

[MinorityRepublican]

Asian flu was deadlier on young people than COVID-19. But older people had immunity to Asian flu, probably because they've encountered similar strains when they were younger so they've had immunity by the time Asian flu was around.

COVID-19 is completely new virus so that's why you see elderly dying in great numbers nowadays.