September 2001 vs March 2020

[hail2skins]

This might have been discussed in other threads and I think I heard the comparison briefly on the Junkies this week.  Obviously 9/11 had the instantaneous jolt of the airplanes, people diving out of WTC before the buildings collapsed, and 3,000-plus people dead just like that.  For the current crisis, the number of dead in the US is still in double digits, but we expect that number to rise substantially in the next weeks, months, and hopefully not to the extent that some are predicting, thanks to the social distancing efforts and hopefully vastly greater widespread testing coming soon.

 

Politically, of course we had a first-year president on 9/11 that the country rallied around against the terrorist threat. Today, we have a president that is in an election year that has been divisive throughout his term and even on this serious issue, publicly downplaying it until the middle of this week, even if he was taking steps such as the travel ban from China relatively early on.

 

From a social perspective, right after 9/11 we had the grounding of the airplanes for what, about a week? I think baseball also didn't play for around the week and the NFL cancelled the games the next Sunday (the way the Redskins looked in week 1, was probably a good thing).  Today, its almost tough to describe, with schools being closed, no big time sports being played, very few people travelling, etc.

 

I guess a quick way to sum up my question.......what felt/feels more surreal? 

 

[abdcskins]

9/11 by far because it was out of nowhere and way more devestating. This is just...I dunno...inconvenient. Plus we knew it was coming. 

[CousinsCowgirl84]

9/11 was on purpose, this is an accident. Or not even an accident... just happened. i’m going 9-11.But if guys in hasmat suits start walking around in the streets like they are doing in italy... i i’ll reserve the right to change my opinion.

[DCSaints_fan]

9/11 felt way more surreal.   For years, I actively avoided all those stories about the people in the tower and on the planes.   Like five years later, when I finally got around to reading about it and imagining want they went through, it depressed me for a while. 

 

But I will say one thing this time around, there seems to be alot more uncertainty.  I'm really hoping we can take effective mitigation efforts.   I'm a bit  scared for my parents who are in their late 70s.   I'm also concerned that business-as-usual approach will lead to to a situation spiraling out of control, social disruption and a breakdown of order. 

[Renegade7]

Ask this question again at the end of the March.

 

9/11 changed human history and the way the US interacted with the rest of the world.  This will change human history and the way we interact with each other, from telework to dealing with seniors. Especially if it becomes endemic.

 

9/11 in hindsight is less surreal then this because even though that caught us off guard, we knew this could happen for the last 100 years since the last one and still look flat footed like we are re-inventing the wheel in the shape of a square.

 

If this spikes or blunts the curve at minimum will make or break Trumps presidency and show if its followed by a recession or depression.  All the more jarring that we saw this coming for so long and still did nothing to prepare for it.  

 

The similarity will be the solidarity of everyone going through it at the same time.  9/11 everyone was American, this time everyone in the world is getting impacted by this.  There might be a bit of positive reflection we look back on until we get back to business as usual, but there will be so much digital record it will be hard to forget it like previous history altering pandemics.

[Sticksboi05]

Sept. 11 was unprecedented on U.S. soil., and in how it was conducted, unprecedented worldwide.

 

By the time this is over it won't be the worst pandemic in U.S. or world history. That said the response to curb this is unprecedented because we're 100 years more informed than society in 1918.

 

Sept. 11 though the financial and death toll from this will likely end up higher unfortunately. It's an enemy you can see vs. an enemy you can't.

[TD_washingtonredskins]

I'm going to go against the grain a little...maybe it's my age. I was 24 in September 2001 and I'm 43 now. 

 

As surreal as 9/11 was to me, the reactions and repercussions seemed much more in-line with what was happening. We were attacked in our airspace so there were almost immediate restrictions put on travel, etc. 

 

Even though this makes sense, the national panic over the past couple days is crazy. Just off the top of my head, I've lived through Swine Flu, SARS, etc. and the fact that people are shutting in their homes, schools are closing for up to a month, leagues are cancelling seasons, etc. - I've never seen a reaction like this. Ever. 

 

Because of that, I have to say that this feels more surreal to me. 

[TheGoodBits]

I’m going covid *potentially* just because we don’t know how permanent this change to our lives is going to be. People are talking about schools closing for two weeks or events canceling like it’s a huge inconvenience that we’ll deal with for a month or two and it’ll be over. Or maybe we can just lay low for a year and then there will be a vaccine and we’ll eradicate the virus like smallpox. 
 

Newsflash: it’s not going to be over in a month or two. There’s no reason to think there will be a vaccine available at the end of the 12-18mo timeline they’ve been using as a best case. There’s no guarantee a vaccine is even possible for covid, or that our population will develop lasting immunity to it after infection. 
 

This could be around and widespread for *years* before we figure out how to effectively treat it. It seems like nobody is really talking about that possibility. 
 

In contrast, yeah 9/11 was a huge shock but there was a defined bad guy with a defined solution: go find them and kill them. 

[Sticksboi05]

2 hours ago, skinsfan_1215 said:

I’m going covid *potentially* just because we don’t know how permanent this change to our lives is going to be. People are talking about schools closing for two weeks or events canceling like it’s a huge inconvenience that we’ll deal with for a month or two and it’ll be over. Or maybe we can just lay low for a year and then there will be a vaccine and we’ll eradicate the virus like smallpox. 
 

Newsflash: it’s not going to be over in a month or two. There’s no reason to think there will be a vaccine available at the end of the 12-18mo timeline they’ve been using as a best case. There’s no guarantee a vaccine is even possible for covid, or that our population will develop lasting immunity to it after infection. 
 

This could be around and widespread for *years* before we figure out how to effectively treat it. It seems like nobody is really talking about that possibility. 
 

In contrast, yeah 9/11 was a huge shock but there was a defined bad guy with a defined solution: go find them and kill them. 

 

There will definitely be effective vaccines at some point. We have SO many more tools than we did for the similar SARS virus. It took 20 months to ship a vaccine for trials for SARS, it took 42 days for this one. It is possible that this could end up being seasonal like the flu, and there's definitely a ton to be learned, but medicine has come so far since past pandemics.

 

It is encouraging to see countries like China and South Korea effectively contain the outbreak with major interventions. We'll have to see how things go when they open the nations back up for business but we have proven at the very least we CAN control this initial outbreak with proper procedures. Hopefully it's not something you can get over and over and over again.

[TheGoodBits]

11 minutes ago, Sticksboi05 said:

 

There will definitely be effective vaccines at some point. We have SO many more tools than we did for the similar SARS virus. It took 20 months to ship a vaccine for trials for SARS, it took 42 days for this one. It is possible that this could end up being seasonal like the flu, and there's definitely a ton to be learned, but medicine has come so far since past pandemics.

 

It is encouraging to see countries like China and South Korea effectively contain the outbreak with major interventions. We'll have to see how things go when they open the nations back up for business but we have proven at the very least we CAN control this initial outbreak with proper procedures. Hopefully it's not something you can get over and over and over again.

We’ve been working on an HIV vaccine for decades. There are no guarantees. 

[Sticksboi05]

1 minute ago, skinsfan_1215 said:

We’ve been working on an HIV vaccine for decades. There are no guarantees. 

 

True, but we've also cured HIV in multiple people now with other therapies that weren't available in past years. And compared to the 1980s, we have drugs people can take allowing them to live a full life with HIV, so still, we're miles ahead.