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> Diseases > Before 1492, Native Americans (Amerindians) hosted none of the acute infectious diseases that had long bedeviled most of Eurasia and Africa: measl
by barry-cotter 5y ago
> Diseases
> Before 1492, Native Americans (Amerindians) hosted none of the acute infectious diseases that had long bedeviled most of Eurasia and Africa: measles, smallpox, influenza, mumps, typhus, and whooping cough, among others. In most places other than isolated villages, these had become endemic childhood diseases that killed one-fourth to one-half of all children before age six. Survivors, however, carried partial, and often total, immunity to most of these infections with the notable exception of influenza. Falciparum malaria, by far the most severe variant of that plasmodial infection, and yellow fever also crossed the Atlantic from Africa to the Americas.
- oblio 5y agoYou didn't address my direct point (speed of propagation) plus guess what, those wiped out several civilizations in the New World, directly contradicting your entire subthread.
- barry-cotter 5y agoWe're vastly richer than the Inca or Aztecs, the most technologically advanced New World civilizations and we know about quarantine and infectious disease, which they didn't. The Inca almost survived getting multiple diseases ten or more times deadlier than COVID at the same time, while being assaulted by people with vastly superior weaponry. It's possible for diseases bad enough to end human civilization to emerge but COVID was never going to be it.
- oblio 5y agoYes, we agree. That's why in my other comment I mentioned SARS-1. COVID can be considered a warning shot. If we don't get our house in order, something like SARS-1 or worse will set us back a century (depending a bit on location, but still).