It's Wednesday, June 3rd, 2020, just after market close in London.

This is the Real Vision Daily Briefing.

I'm Ash Bennington from New York, joined shortly by Roger Hurst from the UK.

But first, Nick Correa, with some additional stories.

Thanks, Ash.

Yesterday, I discussed the 1957 pandemic,

and today I'll talk about the third pandemic that occurred in the 20th century, the pandemic of 1968.

Like 1957, the 1968 pandemic was also caused by a novel strain of influenza A virus, variant H3N2, and it was colloquially referred to as

Hong Kong flu, as the first recorded outbreak was in Hong Kong on July 13, 1968.

Only a couple of weeks after that, extensive outbreaks were reported in

Vietnam and Singapore and by September the virus spread to India, the Philippines,

Australia, and Europe. By then, the virus arrived in California after the soldiers in the Vietnam War

returned to the U.S. The virus became widespread in America by December, and in the following

year, 1969, it had spread to Japan, Africa, and South America. The winter of 1968-69 is when

worldwide deaths peaked. The second wave in 1969-1970 was deadlier in many countries as seen through excess mortality, including England and Wales, France, and Australia.

Even though economic activity was not restricted like it has been today during the coronavirus outbreak, economic activity was still largely impacted due to high levels

of absenteeism because workers were falling ill or dying.

For example, a report in the Wall Street Journal wrote that in 1969, British Postal Services and

train services, as well as French manufacturing suffered from major disruption because people

were absent from work.

The CDC estimates that about 1 million people died worldwide from this outbreak,

and that in the US, about 100,000 people died, with most excess deaths being for those who were 65 and older.

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