That's right we've never had a deadly epidemic.
1793 Philadelphia: more than 4,000 residents died from yellow fever.
1832 July–Aug., New York City: over 3,000 people killed in a cholera epidemic. Oct., New Orleans: cholera took the lives of 4,340 people.
1848 New York City: more than 5,000 deaths caused by cholera.
1853 New Orleans: yellow fever killed 7,790.
1867 New Orleans: 3,093 perished from yellow fever.
1878 Southern states: over 13,000 people died from yellow fever in lower Mississippi Valley.
1916 Nationwide: over 7,000 deaths occurred and 27,363 cases were reported of polio (infantile paralysis) in America's worst polio epidemic.
1918 March–Nov., nationwide: outbreak of Spanish influenza killed over 500,000 people in the worst single U.S. epidemic. 1949 Nationwide: 2,720 deaths occurred from polio, and 42,173 cases were reported.
1952 Nationwide: polio killed 3,300; 57,628 cases reported.
1957 Nationwide: an Asian flu outbreak killed 70,000 before it was completely eradicated.
Read more: Major U.S. Epidemics | Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001460.html#ixzz3GGfzQgCn
Prior to the revolutionary war, one bunch of my ancestors got to sit out quarantine during a smallpox epidemic. On a boat in Charleston harbor. At their expense.
They survived. Last count was 15K+ descendants.