[BluegrassCardinal]

Imagine taking the early 1950’s Polio epidemic and applying it to 2020. People would literally go insane.

In 1952 there were over 58,000 cases and 3,000 or so of those resulted in death. The virus was awful in children, many of whom would suffer from some form of paralysis, or spend time in an iron lung.

[hanamizu]

The virus was awful in children

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I believe an alternate name for polio was infantile paralysis. Like Wuhan, polio could be quite mild, like a bad cold; bad, temporary weakness of a limb very bad, paralysis from the waist down; awful paralysis from the neck down—living in an iron lung; and less remembered now, death.

As a little kid, the iron lung terrified me. TV would show little kids lying on their backs with a tilted mirror to see the world bravely reading propped up books, turning the pages with stick in their mouths. March of Dimes even had little iron lung banks to put your dimes in.