I think that 30% was years ago. I think it also meant those who got the smallpox had a 30% death rate but many people didn't get smallpox then because they had immunity. There were also two kinds of smallpox --one variola major was very deadly, the other variola minor only killed about 1-2%. Variola minor prevented people from getting the worse kind. Agricultural people had exposure to cowpox which also provided immunity.
I think on one hand people today have better nourishment and hygiene......of course that doesn't prevent viruses like colds and flus and they hit clean people just as hard as they do dirty people. We might be a weaker kind of people in other ways because back in those days you probably had to be tough to even survive infancy from other diseases and we have more immune compromised people.
I think that 30% was years ago. I think it also meant those who got the smallpox had a 30% death rate but many people didn't get smallpox then because they had immunity. There were also two kinds of smallpox --one variola major was very deadly, the other variola minor only killed about 1-2%. Variola minor prevented people from getting the worse kind. Agricultural people had exposure to cowpox which also provided immunity. The death rate among American Indians who had absolutely no immunity was around 70-90%. Also, if the smallpox were to come from samples stolen from the Soviet biolgical weapons program, the death rates could be very high. The Soviets collected strains from all over the world during the WHO eradication program. They chose a strain from India collected in 1967 as the basis of their research because it was particularly lethal.