Plague Legends | Hacker News Reader

Plague Legends

guernicamag.com

22 pointsshortleash18 comments

Definitively going to get my booster shot lol.

Only one?

Depends, are we willing to practice basic public sanitation during influenza outbreaks or are we returning to the days before germ theory? I care more about my grandparents than the economy, I take the flu shot yearly, what exactly is the issue with preventative medicine?

Oh this is a dark and fascinating read.

The comparison to Covid - pretty sure if it had happened a couple of decades ago, without PCR tests, nobody would have noticed that there was a pandemic going on. Just a couple of old people dying, why would they have considered it unusual? Not comparable to something like the plague at all.

No one would have noticed hospitals suddenly overflowing with patients experiencing respiratory failure? I know it was almost 2 years ago but you must remember the beginning of the pandemic. You didn't need PCR tests to tell you something big was happening.

Such things happened before Covid, too. Also I personally wouldn't have noticed anything without the TV reports, I suspect it would have been the same for most people.

"You wouldn't have noticed" != "nobody would have noticed". In particular, the health officials and the medical community would have noticed, and would have informed the media, who would have informed all of the population who pay any attention.

Well I question that they would have noticed, seeing as there were a lot of things people were dying from in the past.

As rescripting said above, yes, when hospitals suddenly have an unusual number of patients all dying in the same way, people do in fact notice that.

Why are you so willfully obtuse?

> nobody would have noticed

Yes, people would have noticed. HIV is much less contagious and was quickly noted once it started spreading more quickly.

HIV had people getting weaker over long periods of time, and mostly younger people. Completely different from a bunch of old people dying from flu-like symptoms.

HIV was also completely ignored for the most part because they thought it was "gay cancer". Politics aren't biology but they can certainly become it. We pay more attention to things than we did then I hope. Millions of excess deaths in a given year should be noticeable given that you and I can argue this from nearly any point on the terrestrial surface remotely.

The Spanish flu was over 100 years ago and was detected with fewer mortalities than covid. We haven't suddenly developed a new value for human life - 50 years ago, people still cried when their grandparents died.

It's not about value for human life. Grandparents have always died eventually. A single family also doesn't know if they are part of a statistic. My grandmother died from the flu and it didn't make me think there was a great flu pandemic going on.

I think also with the Spanish Flu it was more younger people who died. A lot of people who "died from Covid" are already much older than people would have gotten 100 years ago.

Excess mortality because of Covid is barely visible in many countries.

Anyway, it is all speculation at this point, would have to dig up more data. It's just an opinion.

Common misconception, the median age skews younger in history because most humans died in infancy. If you survived to adulthood you could expect a similar lifespan (50-80)

Considering we have examples where people did notice? Without PCR tests the infection rate would have been higher. People would have noticed. Without masks and vaccines any more people would have died. And people would have noticed.

Why on earth are you so dismissive of the danger here?

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