“The media and politicians worldwide caused the panic. Without them, it would have just been seen as a bad flu season.”
Exactly right. Did we have this insane hysteria for the:
1. Asian flu (1957–1958)
2. Hong Kong flu (1968–1969)
2. H1N1/09 flu pandemic (2009–2010)
Nope. But Trump wasn’t running for re-election in this pandemics.
Side note: I just observed that many web sites are scrubbing their language to remove all references to Asia and Hong Kong for the 1957 and 1968 pandemics.
The polio outbreak was scary.