[dsun180]

Also we have some disadvantages we didn't had 1918. Like most people living in dense cities. Or it is harder to force people into quarantine.

[usrusr]

And supply chains! There are many things that a 1918 city could manufacture in an emergency that a 2020 city can't.

[simonh]

I think that's a little overblown. It's true in the strict sense that general purpose manufacturing capacity was more common and the production of many goods was more distributed, but on the other hand that manufacturing capacity would have been very limited in capacity and scalability. I'm not convinced it would actually make a big difference in practice.

[ksk]

What manufacturing advantages would a city in 1918 have, to deal with today's situation for example?

[fock]

example? I guess if you wanted it, the 2020 city can manufacture anything it could in 1918...

[falcor84]

>harder to force people into quarantine

I don't think that's true, case in point being the (eventual) Chinese response in Wuhan, which appears to be extremely effective (if you trust their figures). It's all about government determination, which is mostly missing now, just as it was then, based on the article.

[jeromegv]

You don't even need to trust China. Look at Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea.

[ngcc_hk]

Effectively ?!!?

[gimboland]

> Or it is harder to force people into quarantine.

From the article:

> Harris believes that the rapid spread of Spanish flu in the fall of 1918 was at least partially to blame on public health officials unwilling to impose quarantines during wartime.

[dsfyu404ed]

I think there's a quantity/quality difference between the cities of 1918 and today. Even if we have more people in cities today cities in 1918 had much, much worse health and cleanliness practices and allowed much more opportunity for disease to spread.

[moosey]

Enormous quantities of elderly people who will need to be hospitalized, and without will get added to the death toll.

[jbay808]

Probably our biggest disadvantage compared with 1918 is widespread air travel.