eli5 What are the ways people in the 20th century survived the Spanish flu compared to what we experienced in 2020?
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The 1918 pandemic was extremely badly handled. About half the worlds population got infected. Even though the world population was about a tenth of what it is today the death toll from the 1918 pandemic is as high or higher then the rescent pandemic. So in general people did not survive the 1918 pandemic.
There were some efforts though which were somewhat successfull. Initially the sick were isolated. The US military ended up quarantening a lot of camps where disease had broken out. Information campaigns were started telling people to wash their hands frequently and wear face masks. But these efforts were not enough to stop the disease spread to the war in Europe. Here a lot more training camps were infected but they could not be quarantined due to the ongoing war. So the pandemic spread to the rest of the world.
The advice to the population was pretty famelear to us now. Wash your hands, wear face masks, social distancing, self quarantining, etc. Studies have showed that these efforts at least slowed the spread of the disease but were not able to stop it.
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