The weird thing is, that after reopening many thing/services in many places, there were very rarely any new spikes in new cases. We've all been expecting a spike after every measure being removed, and it hasn't happened in most countries (it's probably too soon to speak about the effect of protests in the USA, but we'll see that soon too).
I think at least part of the people keep distancing to some degree, and even if that does not prevent a new spike or outbreak completely, it slows it spread.
That's another critical difference to the Spanish Flu: Spread is much much slower. With the flu, most people become ill and infectious within one day. If that were a dangerous flu pandemic, the world would have had less than two weeks to shut down most cities.
So I can imagine there's a large effect still of even these milder (and partially voluntary) measures.
what lockdown has there been in place during the Spanish flu? afaik[1] it was a big cover up in most of the world:
> "the reason why it was even called Spanish flu was because Spain was not involved in the war, having remained neutral, and had not imposed wartime censorship."
--> hence I assumed Spain was not affected by the propaganda/cover-up efforts and reason for it's spread was precisely the lack of social distancing and lockdowns throughout the world as war ravaged on.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/03/how-citie...
> on October 3, schools, churches, theaters, and public gathering spaces were shut down
> In 1918, a San Francisco health officer shot three people when one refused to wear a mandatory face mask. In Arizona, police handed out $10 fines for those caught without the protective gear.
It is simply not true. Some areas level off at 1-2%, some at 5%, 10, 20% or whatever else. It all depends on when strong social distancing measures were taken.
There were only a few places such as NYC or Bergamo, where measures were taken too late and infections went over 20%.