I stumbled across that link yesterday! I like it a lot.
I sort of feel like the warming of the weather might help some, but it is basically a matter of having enough people catch it that everybody’s been through it. The reason isolation helps is because this flu is particularly nasty and we need to space our those needing medical attention so they don’t flood hospitals all at once.
Looking at the 1918 Spanish Flu in San Diego, first case was Sept 26 and by Dec 31 it was almost gone…cold weather and all. Thinking it through my opinion is that all the people that were going to be exposed had been by that point and that’s why the numbers started to drop. I’m of the opinion that the same thing needs to happen this time.
As far as the economic damage, stocks were already in a freefall in 1918 due to WW1, so it is hard to separate out the effect of the Spanish Flu. Stocks did make a recovery once both were over (they both ended within a month or two of each other) but another recession hit in 1920. Any lessons for us here from that? It is really hard to tell.
