Comments on: Remember the Hong Kong flu?

By: jack

jack — Sun, 17 May 2020 22:02:43 +0000

I graduated from high school in 1968. Have no memory of any “Hong Kong flu.” But that’s not what I’d like to comment on in this post. We are not allowed to call the current flu the “Wuhan virus” or “Chinese virus.” If we do we are shamed and ridiculed! NEO has used “Covid19” in describing the current virus. I don’t think she has buckled under the pressure of the fear of being shamed I think the left wing media has simply won this one small bit. I myself use Covid19 and ask myself WHY? Well i’ve decided what ever I hear the most … that’s the term i’ll use. I know this may be a little picky but it does show that even when you disagree with the media or politician that their tactics do sometimes work.

What has changed that we will allow the tactics of shame and ridicule to work?

By: Tom Grey

Tom Grey — Sat, 16 May 2020 13:24:18 +0000

Summer of ’75 I was a USNA midshipman in Japan. On the way back, we rejoined classmates who were in Subic Bay, in the Philippines. A couple of them did have VD, plus very interesting stories about what talented girls could do with various parts of their, and your, anatomy.

After ’68, my grandmother thought, and said “we should mine Haiphong Harbor, and nuke Hanoi”. I didn’t think she was right, but understood you can’t win fighting against commies unless you’re fighting to win.

Today I believe that had the USA mined Haiphong and been ready to be more assertive, the ’74 Paris Peace would have held up enough to allow Nixon (/Ford) to bomb the peace violating N. Viet invaders in ’75 and save S. Vietnam. And stop the commies from winning there, or in Cambodia – and thus stop the Killing Fields.

I’m pretty sure the Russian communists were active in support of US Democrats against Nixon, and quite willing to do dirty tricks and illegal actions to get rid of him. But Tricky Dick was also not innocent, so was far more vulnerable than either Trump or Flynn.

By: Ray

Ray — Fri, 15 May 2020 23:52:47 +0000

I was in the Navy then and in 1968 we were deployed to beautiful SE Asia, AKA Vietnam. We made a port call in Hong Kong and nobody was concerned about catching the flu. I still remember going to the China Fleet Club. As far as I recall nobody got the flu but lots of sailors got VD. The corpsman was really POed. Everybody had been warned about the VD in Hong Kong and given condoms. We used to joke that you are supposed to use the head on your shoulders before you use the one in your trousers.

By: WA-mom

WA-mom — Fri, 15 May 2020 22:58:18 +0000

I was a first year Middle School teacher. I remember nothing about it, although the name Hong Kong flu sounds familiar. Nor do I have any memory at all of the big pandemic of the late 1950s.

By: Richard Aubrey

Richard Aubrey — Fri, 15 May 2020 21:38:38 +0000

Thinking about the timing. I went to Basic at Ft. Dix in NJ Feb of 69. For years, possibly decades I figured all those guys from all over brought their own bugs. Formation sounded like a bunch of barking seals.
I have no idea what was Army SOP so I have no idea if they did anything differently than usual.
I can think of two things. One is that each company wore a colored tag on their field jacket. They were different colors and were used to make sure companies were not in the same facility–mess hall, PX, etc. at the same time. Since each company had arrived at a different time, we were in different phases of getting over and getting immune to the bugs. No sense mixing.
And we had sneeze shields. They were half targets, human silhouettes from the waist up. We scored them at the appropriate points with our bayonets and used clips to make an item which went under the mattress and about two feet above it for use while sleeping.
But there were lots of guys with really bad URI which, had we known, might have been the HK thing. Or not. Five guys in my platoon of forty had to be recycled after recovering from meningitis. One guy in my squad bay of eight guys got it. None of the rest of us did.
The Army had an orientation film about disease which emphasized cleanliness of facilities and personal hygiene. This was an old one, not just run up for the winter. Cleanliness and hygiene don’t preclude all illnesses but they do reduce the frequency.
All of the above said, I don’t recall hearing the name or that anything we were doing was out of the ordinary.

I do recall the Asian flu being discussed in maybe ninth grade or something. That’s all.

I do not recall any special social or political or legal efforts in any way. Previously, polio fears kept a lot of people away from crowds in the summers and I recall that more clearly than the various flu bugs, although I was quite young. Polio was scary. Everybody knew what an iron lung was, and some of our classmates had these big clunky braces on their legs. Or weren’t there at all in September.

By: NiblicksReach

NiblicksReach — Fri, 15 May 2020 21:11:55 +0000

I was bombing the f@#k out of VN and could give a rat’s ass. All I wanted to do after those 12 hour flights from Guam was sleep and read Playboy.

By: Gerard vanderleun

Gerard vanderleun — Fri, 15 May 2020 20:21:32 +0000

In 68/69 I would have been 23/24. Thinking back now I do believe I had, at some point in those years, a very bad flu that ended up as my first tussle with bronchitis.

By: Bill Serra

Bill Serra — Fri, 15 May 2020 18:32:39 +0000

I was 14, grew up on the Jersey Shore well within the bounds of the NYC Media Metroplex & I don’t remember hearing anything about a HK flu from anyone anywhere.
It just didn’t register.
I don’t remember anyone getting sick from it & I certainly don’t remember anyone dying from it.
And apparently the HK flu killed over 100,000 Americans that year.
So what’s this Wuhan flu shit storm all about now?

By: Texan99

Texan99 — Fri, 15 May 2020 18:01:13 +0000

I was 12, and have no memory of it at all. The first I remember hearing of it was when the idea of a returning 1918 flu hit the popular culture, and I read scary Laurie Garrett books.

By: sdferr

sdferr — Fri, 15 May 2020 15:30:06 +0000

According to my mother the Hong Kong flu nearly killed me (15 at the time). I was too sick to know this. Worst illness I’ve ever had, bar none. So yeah, I sort of remember it, though the details came largely second hand.