Dr Carole A. Heilman, a respiratory expert at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said "England has just not had a major epidemic for 10 to 15 years", whereas the recent presence of similar variants in the US meant that "one could assume there would be some protection".
Speaking in 2008, John Oxford, an expert in virology at London's Queen Mary's School of Medicine and Dentistry, described the 1989 epidemic as having "caught everyone a bit off guard".
[2][14] In July 2009, at the time of the swine flu outbreak, the Western Mail quoted a figure of 29,169 deaths for the 1989 epidemic, and noted its relatively low public profile.
Dr Roland Salmon, director of the communicable disease surveillance centre of the National Public Health Service for Wales, observed that "few people have a marked recollection of 1989 as a year of Biblical carnage".
[10] In October 2020, The Times reported that more people in Scotland died during the 1989–90 flu epidemic than did at the peak of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020.