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by thisiszilff
1670 days ago
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> All those problems were present in 1957 flu epidemic, the 1968/69 epidemic the 1977/79 flu epidemic Those were all influenza A sub-types viruses which we've had experience with. The closest we've come to COVID is SARS/MERS both of which had significantly high case fatality rates (~10% for SARS, 33% for MERS), but neither of those resulted in a pandemic of the same scale. Even then, early COVID symptoms puzzled doctors and there is now mounting evidence that it isn't a pulmonary disease but a cardiovascular one so its long term effects aren't clear. At the start it wasn't even clear we'd develop a successful vaccine for COVID, whereas we've had plenty of experience with vaccines for influenza A subtypes. > it's like they don't know that sooner or later they'd die anyway and that the secret is to live in the moment and enjoy life , stumbling on their way to the grave with a smile on their face due to the fun they had along the way. Sure, some people need to let up a little and accept that the risk of death is inherent in life. But most people are and have been figuring out what level of risk is acceptable to them given a novel threat to them where the risk is uncertain. |
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Let's be serious. Most doctors back then couldn't tell the flu from a coronavirus, and it was probably for the better.
You are taking the present-day degree of information and discounting it back at a much too generous rate.
People, even doctors, were all but alarmed in those years of flu epidemic, even though people died, and young people at that (the flu is a notorious killer of babies and young people)
They were not alarmed because in the great scheme of things nobody died. Most importantly nobody or almost nobody they knew died, so the process of extrapolation and panic didn't start, because those people perceived stuff which didn't happen in their circle of acquiantaces as not relevant to them, which is true even today, but we forgot about it.