“Smallpox was endemic not pandemic.”
I may be wrong, but I thought there were periods in the 17th and 18th century when smallpox was widespread across many nations in surges. Doesn’t that make it a pandemic.
Also, I think that the smallpox ravages of native americans after the early Spanish landings qualified as pandemics.
That said, it doesn’t change that the author is ridiculous calling COVID the worst pandemic in history. Spanish Flu and the Black Death were unambiguously far, far worse than COVID.
The various outbreaks were epidemics because previous outbreaks gave survivors lifetime immunity. So outbreaks occurred regularly whenever the population of virally naive persons became large enough. It’s not respiratory so quarantining the sick actually work. Smallpox worked it’s way across the new world over 2 centuries, not 2 years. Having a nasty death rate doesn’t mean it’s pandemic.
Spanish Flu and Pneumonic plague were definitely pandemics, largely because they wrre novel and respiratory leading to rapid spread globally.
Also, because transportation was primitive, the Spanish Flu and plague while more deadly were far less wide spread than Covid.
Panicked goverment and their stupid policies caused far more death and disruption than actual covid.
We’re super lucky that the GOF experiments weren’t more effective. Fauci could have killed billions instead of millions.