>Imagine dealing with the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic in 1989 instead.
I've wondered about this. No vaccines presumably. But, also, the sort of work from home, online shopping, remote school, etc. that many people/companies were able to more or less adapt to basically wouldn't have been possible in 1990--and, arguably, much before 2000 if that.
It's true that there was less air travel, including international travel, in 1990 than in 2019 but I'd need to be convinced this would be an important factor.
Comparisons to 1918 are hard, if only because of WWI and associated secrecy, but from what I can tell having read a bit, it doesn't appear as if there were widespread or long-lived closures of schools and other places. I assume, we would have acted likewise in 1990; i.e. we wouldn't have done a lot because there wasn't a lot we could do.
ADDED: This was not intended as a political comment. Merely speculation about how the world may have reacted differently in a world effectively without internet or (likely) a rapidly-developed vaccine.
Variolation already exists back then, but with a survival rate of 1-2%. What Edward Jenner did was to confer scientific status on the idea of vaccination and investigated cowpow as a much safer method of inoculation against smallpox.
Heck, decade earliers, George Washington inoculated his troops against smallpox against the wishes of the continental congress.
I've wondered about this. No vaccines presumably. But, also, the sort of work from home, online shopping, remote school, etc. that many people/companies were able to more or less adapt to basically wouldn't have been possible in 1990--and, arguably, much before 2000 if that.
It's true that there was less air travel, including international travel, in 1990 than in 2019 but I'd need to be convinced this would be an important factor.
Comparisons to 1918 are hard, if only because of WWI and associated secrecy, but from what I can tell having read a bit, it doesn't appear as if there were widespread or long-lived closures of schools and other places. I assume, we would have acted likewise in 1990; i.e. we wouldn't have done a lot because there wasn't a lot we could do.
ADDED: This was not intended as a political comment. Merely speculation about how the world may have reacted differently in a world effectively without internet or (likely) a rapidly-developed vaccine.