Why weren't schools closed for swine flu?

amother

Sun, Mar 15 2020, 1:56 am

CDC Estimates of 2009 H1N1 Influenza Cases, Hospitalizations and Deaths in the United States
During the pandemic, CDC provided estimates of the numbers of 2009 H1N1 cases, hospitalizations and deaths on seven different occasions. Final estimates were published in 2011. These final estimates were that from April 12, 2009 to April 10, 2010 approximately 60.8 million cases (range: 43.3-89.3 million), 274,304 hospitalizations (195,086-402,719), and 12,469 deaths (8868-18,306) occurred in the United States due to pH1N1.

I am not trying to minimize coronavirus; I am trying to understand the panic. There were millions of people who got swine flu and over 12,000 deaths but I don't remember anyone panicking. No one was stocking up, no schools were closed. Why is this being treated so differently than swine flu and other pandemics? Why didn't they close schools in 2009?

amother

Pumpkin

Sun, Mar 15 2020, 2:03 am

amother [ OP ] wrote:

Because the hospitalizations were in line with normal influenza and people had some cross immunity. Coronavirus has a higher hospitalization rate and there is no immunity.

amother

Seafoam

Sun, Mar 15 2020, 2:19 am

OP, based on those swine flu stats, around 60 million cases and 275k hospitalizations. That's means even less than 1 in 200 cases were hospitalized. That's less than a half of 1%.

amother

Pewter

Sun, Mar 15 2020, 2:21 am

The mortality rate for swine flu was 0.02%. This is less than the average mortality rate for the seasonal flu of 0.1%. The novel coronavirus has an estimated death rate of 1-3.5%.

seeker

Sun, Mar 15 2020, 5:59 am

Don't know about the other factors, but for starters it mostly came out over the summer. No school. I remember because I was working in camp simcha at the time, so they had to take strict measures to keep the vulnerable population safe.

amother

Firebrick

Sun, Mar 15 2020, 6:05 am

One main reason is because, due to the above reasons, we had an illusion of control.

Now there is no illusion of control. So we are trying to pretend we have control by controlling everything else.

The reality is that only Hashem is in control.

But we leave the worrying and panicking and pseudo-controlling to the decision-makers, obey what they put in place, and ourselves live calmly.

naomi2

Sun, Mar 15 2020, 8:13 am

There was less media influence then. Noone had smartphones. There was no social media or Whatsapp and many frum people did not have a TV. I think people just didn't know about it and didn't panic. I'm sure many more people got swine flu than was reported because if someone got the flu they stayed home and assumed it was regular flu. I think comparing the statistics about both can be misleading because they are based on self reporting.

Cmon be nice

Sun, Mar 15 2020, 8:38 am

Im pretty sure they closed for a day, whicj was day before erev shavous cuz I remember the teachers bringing home the yom tov projects. By thr following week I think things had stabilized so they reopened

amother

Maroon

Sun, Mar 15 2020, 9:08 am

naomi2 wrote:

There was social media and smartphones in 2009.

imasoftov

Sun, Mar 15 2020, 9:56 am

amother [ Maroon ] wrote:

There was social media and smartphones in 2009.

I looked for articles with flu in the title from 2009 and 2010. Same "do I have it?", "should I be worried?", "is it safe to travel?", vaccination discussions, and this gem: Swine Flu Parties

But here's one thread that mentions school closings.