If there is a smallpox outbreak, I don’t think it’ll end the same as the covid pandemic. Covid mostly kills the old, frail, and genetically unfortunate. Long covid is still unsolved, that’s most people’s biggest risk right now.
Smallpox has ravaged cities and ended civilizations. Some variants have a 1% fatality rate, but many others go up to 50% or even 90-100% in extreme cases. Furthermore, you can’t pretend not to have smallpox. You will have visible signs, and a significant amount of victims will be disfigured or even disabled for life.
The elimination of diseases like smallpox is nothing short of a scientific miracle that has saved hundreds of millions of lives. I’m afraid it’ll be undermined by idiots who grew up in a world where stubbing your toe or hitting your head against a cupboard will never be anything close a brush with death, but with antibiotic overuse and the increasing amount of crazy people refusing vaccines, we may end up fall back to a (hopefully brief) period of death and despair.
If there is a smallpox outbreak, I don’t think it’ll end the same as the covid pandemic. Covid mostly kills the old, frail, and genetically unfortunate. Long covid is still unsolved, that’s most people’s biggest risk right now.
Smallpox has ravaged cities and ended civilizations. Some variants have a 1% fatality rate, but many others go up to 50% or even 90-100% in extreme cases. Furthermore, you can’t pretend not to have smallpox. You will have visible signs, and a significant amount of victims will be disfigured or even disabled for life.
The elimination of diseases like smallpox is nothing short of a scientific miracle that has saved hundreds of millions of lives. I’m afraid it’ll be undermined by idiots who grew up in a world where stubbing your toe or hitting your head against a cupboard will never be anything close a brush with death, but with antibiotic overuse and the increasing amount of crazy people refusing vaccines, we may end up fall back to a (hopefully brief) period of death and despair.