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Europeans learned to live with the bubonic plague, which has never been eradicated, and Native Americans, over time, overcame the smallpox that was introduced a

Europeans learned to live with the bubonic plague, which has never been eradicated, and Native Americans, over time, overcame the smallpox that was introduced among them. The people of today can do the same with Covid. It is the only way.

brodouevencode 5y ago
Agreed. Events like this should remind us to not be so arrogant.
jollybean 5y ago
"The people of today can do the same with Covid."? The plague wiped out 1/2 of Europeans and Smallpox maybe the majority of Aboriginals. Or something like that. Yes, 'we can survive' I don't think anyone doubts that. The question is, is it going to kill several million Americans or more during it's run. Hopefully not but I'm also someone can show us what the light at the end of this tunnel looks like.
- tinus_hn 5y ago
  Covid has a below 1% case fatality rate. It is not going to ‘kill several million Americans’.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Covid has a below 1% case fatality rate. The US has 622K fatalities on 37M cases, which is a 1.68% CFR (and is an undercount, because some current cases that will be fatalities aren't yet.) Of course, CFR isn't a constant, it varies with current healthcare overload and the lethality of different strains, among other factors.
    - tinus_hn 5y ago
      I love how now the fatalities are an undercount and the number of cases is a certainty so it fits this shoehorned argument. In reality the fatalities are ‘people who died within a certain period after being tested positive’ and an enormous amount of cases without any symptoms go undetected.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > I love how now the fatalities are an undercount and the number of cases is a certainty so it fits this shoehorned argument. Cases are a certainty basically by definition (now, if you want to do the usual thing and argue that we should look at IFR and not CFR, that’s a different story, but I’m not the one who introduced a false claim about CFR.) > an enormous amount of cases without any symptoms go undetected. By definition, if an infection goes undetected, its not a case.
  - jollybean 5y ago
    Of course not that's my point - 'if' millions of Americans die, it's not really comforting to say 'oh we'll make it through'. Of course we'll make it through, that's not the issue.
SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
The bubonic plague killed around a third of Europe (1) and upended the social order for generations (2). Up to 90% of Native Americans died from smallpox and other imported diseases (3) and it's clear that their societies were in fact overcome. They died a lot. To handwave "learn to live with" is naïve and facile. A virus can't care if we lose a double-digit percentage of population, but we're not choosing that course. Don't mistake a disaster remembered 500 years later for "eh. it worked out ok" Don't confuse mass death with "learn to live with". 1) https://www.history.com/topics/middle-ages/black-death https://www.history.com/topics/middle-ages/black-death 2) https://www.britannica.com/event/Black-Death/Effects-and-significance https://www.britannica.com/event/Black-Death/Effects-and-sig... 3) https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/impact-european-diseases-native-americans https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-...
- bingohbangoh 5y ago
  COVID is not nearly as deadly and we know this after 18 months of living with it. Please stop comparing the two.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
    Your reply might be below the wrong comment? Grandparent post raised the topic.

brodouevencode 5y ago

Agreed. Events like this should remind us to not be so arrogant.

jollybean 5y ago

"The people of today can do the same with Covid."? The plague wiped out 1/2 of Europeans and Smallpox maybe the majority of Aboriginals. Or something like that. Yes, 'we can survive' I don't think anyone doubts that. The question is, is it going to kill several million Americans or more during it's run. Hopefully not but I'm also someone can show us what the light at the end of this tunnel looks like.

tinus_hn 5y ago
Covid has a below 1% case fatality rate. It is not going to ‘kill several million Americans’.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Covid has a below 1% case fatality rate. The US has 622K fatalities on 37M cases, which is a 1.68% CFR (and is an undercount, because some current cases that will be fatalities aren't yet.) Of course, CFR isn't a constant, it varies with current healthcare overload and the lethality of different strains, among other factors.
  - tinus_hn 5y ago
    I love how now the fatalities are an undercount and the number of cases is a certainty so it fits this shoehorned argument. In reality the fatalities are ‘people who died within a certain period after being tested positive’ and an enormous amount of cases without any symptoms go undetected.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > I love how now the fatalities are an undercount and the number of cases is a certainty so it fits this shoehorned argument. Cases are a certainty basically by definition (now, if you want to do the usual thing and argue that we should look at IFR and not CFR, that’s a different story, but I’m not the one who introduced a false claim about CFR.) > an enormous amount of cases without any symptoms go undetected. By definition, if an infection goes undetected, its not a case.
- jollybean 5y ago
  Of course not that's my point - 'if' millions of Americans die, it's not really comforting to say 'oh we'll make it through'. Of course we'll make it through, that's not the issue.

SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago

The bubonic plague killed around a third of Europe (1) and upended the social order for generations (2). Up to 90% of Native Americans died from smallpox and other imported diseases (3) and it's clear that their societies were in fact overcome. They died a lot. To handwave "learn to live with" is naïve and facile. A virus can't care if we lose a double-digit percentage of population, but we're not choosing that course. Don't mistake a disaster remembered 500 years later for "eh. it worked out ok" Don't confuse mass death with "learn to live with". 1) https://www.history.com/topics/middle-ages/black-death https://www.history.com/topics/middle-ages/black-death 2) https://www.britannica.com/event/Black-Death/Effects-and-significance https://www.britannica.com/event/Black-Death/Effects-and-sig... 3) https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/impact-european-diseases-native-americans https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-...

bingohbangoh 5y ago
COVID is not nearly as deadly and we know this after 18 months of living with it. Please stop comparing the two.
- SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
  Your reply might be below the wrong comment? Grandparent post raised the topic.