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AIDS: easily avoided MMR: easily avoided That leaves swine flu. According to this Wikipedia page about the 2009 flu pandemic (which is what the term “swine fl

AIDS: easily avoided MMR: easily avoided That leaves swine flu. According to this Wikipedia page about the 2009 flu pandemic (which is what the term “swine flu” references, as best as I can tell), worldwide fatalities are estimated at 575 thousand (upper bound) and worldwide infections are estimated at 700 million (lower bound). Given those numbers, the worst case fatality rate is 0.08%. Then there is this quote: > A follow-up study done in September 2010 showed that the risk of serious illness resulting from the 2009 H1N1 flu was no higher than that of the yearly seasonal flu. So my point remains: no one in the west had direct experience of a pandemic. Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic

NikolaeVarius 7y ago
Wow, AIDS and MMR has not affected the western world. That's a new one.
- toasterlovin 7y ago
  That is not what I have said anywhere in this thread.
  - NikolaeVarius 7y ago
    >> So my point remains: no one in the west had direct experience of a pandemic.
    - toasterlovin 7y ago
      From Wikipedia (pandemic and epidemic entries): > A pandemic (from Greek πᾶν pan "all" and δῆμος demos "people") is a disease epidemic that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents, or worldwide. > An epidemic (from Greek ἐπί epi "upon or above" and δῆμος demos "people") is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of people in a given population within a short period of time. AIDS does not meet those definitions, unless you restrict “given population” to mean male homosexuals or recipients of blood transfusions.
      - Retric 7y ago
        AIDS cases have been to every country in the world which easily satisfies as a pandemic. Epidemic is different with Covid19 not yet qualifying. What’s useful about separating the ideas is discovering the root cause. Scurvy used to be epidemic among sailers, making it easier to find the root cause and treatments. Highly localized diseases generally have a specific local cause.
        toasterlovin 7y ago
        AIDS has not spread very rapidly. It has taken nearly 4 decades to reach its current spread. Covid has the potential to infect most people in the span of 12-18 months. It’s categorically different. And AIDS is easily avoided!
        Retric 7y ago
        Rate of spread has nothing to do with the definition of pandemic. It took literally thousands of years for Smallpox to reach the America’s, but it achieved worldwide spread before eradication. Malaria on the other hand has also killed hundreds of millions of people but as it’s a tropical disease with 93% of the cases occurring in Africa it’s not a pandemic. Again person to person spread results in pandemics, making a definition based on geographic spread useful.
        toasterlovin 7y ago
        The definition of epidemic that I quoted above uses the word “rapid” and the phrase “short period of time”. The definition of pandemic requires there to be an epidemic. Those are not my invention, they are from Wikipedia!
        Retric 7y ago
        Rapid as in a large number of cases a week, thus “within a short period of time.” Not rapid as in how long the disease existed. The malaria epidemic is thousands of years old, nobody cares how quickly it spread 20 thousands years ago. Edit: Excluding academic intrest. PS: And by Covid 19 not qualifying as an epidemic I meant it’s not an epidemic in every country. It however is an epidemic in several countries and will likely become an epidemic in most if not all country’s very quickly.
Jeema101 7y ago
AIDS was not easily avoided. The blood supply was not screened early on. Many people early in the epidemic were infected from simple transfusions. Famous American tennis player Arthur Ashe contracted it and died in this manner.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  It's not possible to screen for certain if someone has just acquired HIV, so to this day, they try to exclude people with risk factors from donating blood. Which then is treated as a human rights issue by some.
  - TomMarius 7y ago
    I am from Europe so it seems a little weird to me - is donating blood your right in the USA?
    - quickthrowman 7y ago
      No, there are a series of screening questions that rule out high-risk donors (gay men, IV drug users, and travelers to high/risk areas are disqualified from donating). All blood is tested regardless.
      - perl4ever 7y ago
        However, not everybody agrees that all of the questions are necessary or appropriately worded.
      - TomMarius 7y ago
        That is the same as here, but how is it a human rights issue?
        DoreenMichele 7y ago
        If you are gay, they don't want you to donate blood. The problem is that if you are, say, at work and they do a blood drive and you say "I can't. Sorry." that potentially outs you to your coworkers that you are gay or have some other issue that disqualifies your blood. In practice, they will let you donate and then mark it for destruction so you can hide the fact from your coworkers that you don't qualify. (Or they did at one time.) This was a big issue in the US military during the "don't ask, don't tell" era where they would throw you out if they knew, but official policy was to encourage you to just remain closeted. Being outed as gay was career ending if you were career military at that time. Blood drives are common in the military. They had to have some mechanism to honor the "don't ask, don't tell" policy and let you keep hiding your sexual orientation.

NikolaeVarius 7y ago

Wow, AIDS and MMR has not affected the western world. That's a new one.

toasterlovin 7y ago
That is not what I have said anywhere in this thread.
- NikolaeVarius 7y ago
  >> So my point remains: no one in the west had direct experience of a pandemic.
  - toasterlovin 7y ago
    From Wikipedia (pandemic and epidemic entries): > A pandemic (from Greek πᾶν pan "all" and δῆμος demos "people") is a disease epidemic that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents, or worldwide. > An epidemic (from Greek ἐπί epi "upon or above" and δῆμος demos "people") is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of people in a given population within a short period of time. AIDS does not meet those definitions, unless you restrict “given population” to mean male homosexuals or recipients of blood transfusions.
    - Retric 7y ago
      AIDS cases have been to every country in the world which easily satisfies as a pandemic. Epidemic is different with Covid19 not yet qualifying. What’s useful about separating the ideas is discovering the root cause. Scurvy used to be epidemic among sailers, making it easier to find the root cause and treatments. Highly localized diseases generally have a specific local cause.
      - toasterlovin 7y ago
        AIDS has not spread very rapidly. It has taken nearly 4 decades to reach its current spread. Covid has the potential to infect most people in the span of 12-18 months. It’s categorically different. And AIDS is easily avoided!
        Retric 7y ago
        Rate of spread has nothing to do with the definition of pandemic. It took literally thousands of years for Smallpox to reach the America’s, but it achieved worldwide spread before eradication. Malaria on the other hand has also killed hundreds of millions of people but as it’s a tropical disease with 93% of the cases occurring in Africa it’s not a pandemic. Again person to person spread results in pandemics, making a definition based on geographic spread useful.
        toasterlovin 7y ago
        The definition of epidemic that I quoted above uses the word “rapid” and the phrase “short period of time”. The definition of pandemic requires there to be an epidemic. Those are not my invention, they are from Wikipedia!
        Retric 7y ago
        Rapid as in a large number of cases a week, thus “within a short period of time.” Not rapid as in how long the disease existed. The malaria epidemic is thousands of years old, nobody cares how quickly it spread 20 thousands years ago. Edit: Excluding academic intrest. PS: And by Covid 19 not qualifying as an epidemic I meant it’s not an epidemic in every country. It however is an epidemic in several countries and will likely become an epidemic in most if not all country’s very quickly.

Jeema101 7y ago

AIDS was not easily avoided. The blood supply was not screened early on. Many people early in the epidemic were infected from simple transfusions. Famous American tennis player Arthur Ashe contracted it and died in this manner.

perl4ever 7y ago
It's not possible to screen for certain if someone has just acquired HIV, so to this day, they try to exclude people with risk factors from donating blood. Which then is treated as a human rights issue by some.
- TomMarius 7y ago
  I am from Europe so it seems a little weird to me - is donating blood your right in the USA?
  - quickthrowman 7y ago
    No, there are a series of screening questions that rule out high-risk donors (gay men, IV drug users, and travelers to high/risk areas are disqualified from donating). All blood is tested regardless.
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      However, not everybody agrees that all of the questions are necessary or appropriately worded.
    - TomMarius 7y ago
      That is the same as here, but how is it a human rights issue?
      - DoreenMichele 7y ago
        If you are gay, they don't want you to donate blood. The problem is that if you are, say, at work and they do a blood drive and you say "I can't. Sorry." that potentially outs you to your coworkers that you are gay or have some other issue that disqualifies your blood. In practice, they will let you donate and then mark it for destruction so you can hide the fact from your coworkers that you don't qualify. (Or they did at one time.) This was a big issue in the US military during the "don't ask, don't tell" era where they would throw you out if they knew, but official policy was to encourage you to just remain closeted. Being outed as gay was career ending if you were career military at that time. Blood drives are common in the military. They had to have some mechanism to honor the "don't ask, don't tell" policy and let you keep hiding your sexual orientation.