Perhaps most of you know this .. (error on Spanish Flu Corrected)

[JimT]

but pandemics are nothing new. History is full of them. While not a pleasant a topic as leverguns and shooting, it does show that what the world is experiencing it has experienced before. Unfortunately I find a lot of the younger generation don't seem to pay a lot of attention to history.

Some Pandemics in History

Plague of Athens: 430 B.C. - lasted 5 years .. killed perhaps 100,000

Antonine Plague: A.D. 165-180 ... killed over 5 million in the Roman Empire.

Plague of Cyprian: A.D. 250-271 ... 5000 people a day were dying in the city of Rome at the height of this plague

Plague of Justinian: A.D. 541-542 .... bubonic plague that killed up to 10% of the world's population ..

The Black Death: 1346-1353 ... killed half of Europe's population

Cocoliztli epidemic: 1545-1548 ... killed 15 million inhabitants of Mexico and Central America ..

Great Plague of London: 1665-1666

Great Plague of Marseille: 1720-1723

Russian plague: 1770-1772
(the above 3 plagues killed hundreds of thousands by most estimates)

Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic: 1793 - killed 10% of the city population in 4 months

Flu pandemic: 1889-1890 - killed nearly a million people around the world

Spanish Flu: 1918-1920 ..estimated 500 million people caught the Spanish Flu and possibly close to 100 million them died.

Asian Flu: 1957-1958 .. killed close to a million people

H1N1 Swine Flu pandemic: 2009-2010 .. killed between several hundred thousand and 1/2 million

[piller]

If our noose media were honest, they might compare what is going on now to what has been and find that it was perhaps worse in the past.

[FWiedner]

.

It's true, but we're supposed to be smarter now, i.e., more knowledgeable about how to handle these things.

Personally, I don't see the progress.

[piller]

Well, gress is the latin for step, and pro is someone who does certain acts for money, so progress is only allowed to happen if someone makes money.

[Bronco]

WHAT ????
Pandemics have happened before
Now lets talk about global warming, how did those fossils of ferns get to the artic, because that has never happened before either.

From the Star Wars movie " IT'S A TRAP "

[Bill in Oregon]

There is some serious fudging going on here. The Spanish flu, an H1N1 variant like a later one that killed my own WWII combat-vet father, infected half a billion, but killed from 17 to 50 million or more. It may have gotten its start at or near Fort Riley, KS. A hallmark was that it killed the young and "healthy." If you think I am a lying ***, then read Elmer Keith's account in "Hell, I was There."
Let's have facts and not phony Internet fake BS as we negotiate this current mess, on top of all our other messes.

[AJMD429]

Our current pandemic is a pandemic of pusillanimity, specifically manifesting as Trump Derangement Syndrome.

[Bill in Oregon]

I don't think politics should have anything to do with medicine, but then I am just a poor civilian/American citizen.

[JimT]

There is some serious fudging going on here. The Spanish flu, an H1N1 variant like a later one that killed my own WWII combat-vet father, infected half a billion, but killed from 17 to 50 million or more. It may have gotten its start at or near Fort Riley, KS. A hallmark was that it killed the young and "healthy." If you think I am a lying ***, then read Elmer Keith's account in "Hell, I was There."
Let's have facts and not phony Internet fake BS as we negotiate this current mess, on top of all our other messes.

Bill ... Nothing phony about what I posted BUT I did make a serious error when typing. Some who study such things as the Spanish Flu feel that possibly 100 million died. It was my mistake .. not fake anything. I have corrected that.

[Larkbill]

One of the large problems as I see it is that we think we are so smart and advanced that too many of the "scientists" made stuff up instead of saying "I don't know". Sometimes that's the only correct answer.

[mikld]

I think the human race is a plague on the Earth and Mother Nature keeps trying to get rid of it. The human race has become an "Antibiotic Resistant" disease on the Earth, but Mother Nature keep trying...

[piller]

That could be. I am not the ONE who has final say in such things.

[wecsoger]

Mother Nature keeps trying to get rid of...

You're close. Actually, Mother Nature doesn't really care. Either you're successful at life, and you live. If not, you die. That's as simple as it gets.

Current virus has been v. successful at getting its hosts to spread it around. Hosts live long enough to do so.

Ebola is barely successful, only because it's aggressively infectious. Otherwise it kills its host before spreading.

All in all we've been pretty good at adapting at all the environments on this pale blue speck.

However, if the corona virus numbers we tweaked, say three incubation and 50-60% fatal, we'd be gone in a matter of months.

[gamekeeper]

I think the human race is a plague on the Earth and Mother Nature keeps trying to get rid of it. The human race has become an "Antibiotic Resistant" disease on the Earth, but Mother Nature keep trying...

Mike, we think alike....