Did you know the Woodstock Music Festival in 1969 took place during a global pandemic?

It killed about 100,000 people in the U.S. and a million worldwide.

According to Jeffrey A. Tucker, the Editorial Director for the American Institute for Economic Research:

“The flu spread from Hong Kong to the United States, arriving December 1968 and peaking a year later. It ultimately killed 100,000 people in the U.S., mostly over the age of 65, and one million worldwide.”

And yeah, it was fact checked by Reuters:

“It is true that Woodstock occurred during the Hong Kong flu pandemic, which was a global outbreak.”

In “True claim: Woodstock took place in the middle of a pandemic,” Reuters Fact Check makes the verdict:

“True. The 1969 Woodstock music festival did take place during a global pandemic, the Hong Kong flu, which started the previous year.”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) explains on its website:

“It was first noted in the United States in September 1968. The estimated number of deaths was 1 million worldwide and about 100,000 in the United States. Most excess deaths were in people 65 years and older. The H3N2 virus continues to circulate worldwide as a seasonal influenza A virus.”

Woman running through the mud at the Woodstock Music Festival, New York, US, 17th August 1969. (Photo by Owen Franken/Corbis via Getty Images))

So, there you go.

It’s not so different this time, except in ’69 they still carried on with concerts like Woodstock and such.

According to Tucker;

“Nothing was closed by force. Schools mostly stayed open. Businesses did too. You could go to the movies. You could go to bars and restaurants.” 

I’ve not had a problem with the Stay at Home orders, and it hasn’t changed my life much, other than we miss hanging out with friends and going out to dinner.

But, he also says;

“Stock markets didn’t crash. Congress passed no legislation. The Federal Reserve did nothing. Not a single governor acted to enforce social distancing, curve flattening (even though hundreds of thousands of people were hospitalized), or banning of crowds. No mothers were arrested for taking their kids to other homes. No surfers were arrested. No daycares were shut even though there were more infant deaths with this virus than the one we are experiencing now. There were no suicides, no unemployment, no drug overdoses.”

So, yeah, maybe the modern day connectivity has amplified the outcome and caused some initial under-reaction and then overreaction?

I’m not surprised.

It’s just the people, doing what they do.

Read the whole story, it’s been fact checked and found to be accurate: Woodstock Occurred in the Middle of a Pandemic.

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