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10 Deadliest Pandemics In History Were Much Worse Than Coronavirus So Far
The Federalist ^ | April 18, 2020 | Dan Carpenter

Posted on 04/18/2020 6:21:12 AM PDT by Kaslin

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1 posted on 04/18/2020 6:21:12 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Not surprising since blood letting and leeches didn’t cure much.


2 posted on 04/18/2020 6:29:16 AM PDT by maddog55
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To: Kaslin

There is good evidence that the Spanish Flu originated in Kansas. Because of WWI, the censors clamped down on any news that might affect morale. Spain wasn’t at war and had no censorship. The first widely reported infection was a member of the Spanish royalty, hence the name.

BTW, other evidence supports an origin in China. Could have been spread by the many thousands of Chinese that served in labor battalions in France.

No one knows...


3 posted on 04/18/2020 6:29:30 AM PDT by DugwayDuke ("A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest")
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To: Kaslin

Very interesting. Thanks for posting.


4 posted on 04/18/2020 6:29:44 AM PDT by bigdaddy45
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To: Kaslin

5 posted on 04/18/2020 6:32:51 AM PDT by rlmorel (The Coronavirus itself will not burn down humanity. But we may burn ourselves down to be rid of it.)
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To: Kaslin

No one in the past took the extraordinary measures we have or had anything approaching our level of medical technology. It would have been a LOT worse if it had happened in the past. Plus, China’s numbers and other countries’ numbers have been significantly undercounted.


6 posted on 04/18/2020 6:38:57 AM PDT by Crucial
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To: rlmorel

These stories do nothing but make you more angry.
MSM/DNC forced Trump into a vice so here we are. There was no avoiding this with a re-election months away. The GOP Governors let him take the heat.


7 posted on 04/18/2020 6:42:21 AM PDT by gibsonguy
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To: gibsonguy

It was not a choice for the President, he had to do it, but I think he has acquitted himself well.


8 posted on 04/18/2020 6:44:44 AM PDT by rlmorel (The Coronavirus itself will not burn down humanity. But we may burn ourselves down to be rid of it.)
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To: Crucial

Those are good points to keep in mind.


9 posted on 04/18/2020 6:46:13 AM PDT by rlmorel (The Coronavirus itself will not burn down humanity. But we may burn ourselves down to be rid of it.)
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To: Kaslin

The common flu, itself, has been far deadlier than this drama bug.


10 posted on 04/18/2020 6:51:20 AM PDT by CodeToad (Arm Up! They Have!)
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To: Kaslin

There was also an epidemic of Asiatic cholera that swept through Europe in 1830 and the US two years later. Although this is a water-borne disease, people at the time thought it was airborne and huge bonfires were set around the perimeter of cities and towns in an attempt to stave it off.

Tuberculosis was also endemic in the nineteenth and into the twentieth century until antibiotics were developed that could treat it.


11 posted on 04/18/2020 6:54:37 AM PDT by Fiji Hill
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To: DugwayDuke
-- There is good evidence that the Spanish Flu originated in Kansas. --

I think that's pretty much accepted true.

There is also speculation that much of the death was aspirin overdose, not flu.

12 posted on 04/18/2020 6:57:01 AM PDT by Cboldt
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To: rlmorel
My favorite virus picture. Reminds me of something out of War of the Worlds.


13 posted on 04/18/2020 6:59:24 AM PDT by Vaquero ( Don't pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.)
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To: Kaslin

At the time it was raging through Europe, the bubonic plague was not called the Black Death but the pestilence. “Black Death” is one of those terms that was coined afterwards—like Renaissance (coined by Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt in the nineteenth century), Industrial Revolution (coined in the twentieth century) and Roaring Twenties (coined in 1939).


14 posted on 04/18/2020 7:00:26 AM PDT by Fiji Hill
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To: Kaslin

The plague of communism in the USSR and PRC is right up there with the worst of microbes in terms of deaths.


15 posted on 04/18/2020 7:06:07 AM PDT by Joe 6-pack (Qui me amat, amat et canem meum.)
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To: Crucial
“No one in the past took the extraordinary measures we have or had anything approaching our level of medical technology.”

Absolutely.

The discovery of bacteria by van Leeuwenhoek wasn't until 1676 - and the significance of them was not known until the establishment of ‘germ theory’ in the mid to late 19th century. Viruses weren't discovered until the 1890s, ~20 years before the Spanish Flu pandemic. Penicillin wasn't discovered until 1928 (Fleming).

Influenza was first isolated in 1933, and widespread vaccination didn't begin until ~1945. The structure of DNA wasn't discovered until 1953. The first antivirals were proposed in the 1960’s.

The bottom line is that it's very hard to compare the virulence/lethality of all these different infectious diseases, as they occurred at different times in history.

16 posted on 04/18/2020 7:06:51 AM PDT by neverevergiveup
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To: Vaquero

That’s a bacteriophage virus. They infect bacteria.


17 posted on 04/18/2020 7:11:28 AM PDT by neverevergiveup
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To: rlmorel

It was not a choice for the President, he had to do it, but I think he has acquitted himself well.’

That’s my view too. Even his early efforts to keep a lid on this have been turned into vicious and effective attack ads.
I feel his numbers are starting to slip. People are seeing the real numbers and they are f’n sick of being under house arrest. The GOP Governors have to get some stones and go to phase 1 by the end of this month. I am looking at you Abbot, I would have expected that gutless proclamation to come from NJ.


18 posted on 04/18/2020 7:12:14 AM PDT by gibsonguy
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To: rlmorel

Very informative graphics. Thanks for sharing.


19 posted on 04/18/2020 7:12:49 AM PDT by Starboard
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To: Fiji Hill

Coined in hindsight. Fascinating info.

Thanks for sharing.


20 posted on 04/18/2020 7:19:24 AM PDT by Starboard
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