In 1967-68, when I was a freshman in college, there were 100,000 flu deaths in the U.S., which had at that time a population of about 200,000,000. This was the so-called “Hong Kong” flu. It was a bad flu season, but I don’t remember the economy being shut down.
I had that Hong Kong flu OMG thought I was going to die 3 weeks flat on my back and another week just to feel half way stable again I was you pulled through just fine and yes a huge number of deaths BUT the country remained open BECAUSE we were not a bunch of fricking snowflakes!! I want to know WHY all of these damn viruses come from Asia we need to get our companies the hell out of there!!
But Americans were still mostly hardy folks back then. 8>)