Lord Lady
[covid19] so is this a major historical event like I've seen people say
Lord Lady
or is it just an event
Lord Lady
a real bad one
CJ
it certainly feels like the former
Lord Lady
maybe if governments are effective enough it'll only be an event
zee art
no it's definitely a historical one
zee art
we've had widespread diseases before, like the influenza and such, but it's never been THIS widespread
zee art
because we're very good at traveling now
zee art
it's never been, every country dealing with it, shutting down, etc
Lord Lady
oh yeah that's a fair point
zee art
not that i've been reading about pandemics lately or anything, but the last one that caused a stir was the "spanish flu", the influenza of 1918. that was right after ww1, and soldiers returning from the war spread it around at hime
zee art
at home*
zee art
(it was called spanish flu because spain, not involved with the war, was not having their media censored, so they were the first to begin to report on it)
zee art
there are grainy old pictures of boatloads of soldiers and medics wearing face masks, reminiscent of what we're seeing today, but ... today is on SUCH a bigger scale
zee art
" It is estimated that about 500 million people or one-third of the world’s population became infected with this virus. The number of deaths was estimated to be at least 50 million worldwide with about 675,000 occurring in the United States."
zee art
but back then they had no vaccine and no antibiotics, so really all they could do was good hygiene and quarantining ... so this will probably turn out better for us, generally speaking, but spread further
zee art
also worth noting that it lasted 2 years, and started out fairly mild ... but then it mutated, and the last 3 months were brutal
zee art
so! viruses. there's your historical crash course
zee art
if you want to be grateful about how much better we understand viruses today
Lord Lady
that does help put things into perspective
Lord Lady
I guess I was thinking about it in terms of the more recent plagues like swine flu, bird flu, and sars
Lord Lady
which are all very serious, but most people have lowkey forgotten about them unless impacted by them directly
Lord Lady
well at least I have some bedtime reading
HOT TURKEY TAKE
It depends on your definition of "major historical event"; The flu of 1918 was a major historical event and it was a pandemic on this level, albeit one with a higher lethality rate in young adults
HOT TURKEY TAKE
though now I see zee has given the full primer on it
HOT TURKEY TAKE
also sars is a good comparison, since covid-19 is in the same strain as it; it has a lot of similar symptoms and a similar origin point but spread a lot further a lot faster
Lord Lady
Here's How COVID-19 Compares to Past Outbreaks
Lord Lady
huh here's an article that answers my question
zee art
oh nice, that article is exactly what i was hoping to learn with all my reading
Lord Lady
my initial question was "why was sars so deadly" and got this article instead
Lord Lady
so thank you google for showing me what I was actually looking for