Good point, and that's why you can't simply lift every restriction overnight. But the 1918 flu pandemic was literally over 100 years ago, I'd like to think we have learned something in the meantime about how to control disease outbreaks.
We did learn things and it caused us to develop a national health care infrastructure. Things have started to decay on that front over the last couple decades though, at least in places like the US which haven't had a SARS outbreak. It's almost like we have to relearn lessons every 4 generations or so, as the older generation dies off and we forget their experiences. Strauss-Howe Generational Theory, here might be our Crisis...
