We've had, in this century, SARS, swine flu, MERS, ebola (× like 4), mpox (×2 apparently), Zika virus, and COVID-19. AIDS is a pandemic that's been going on since before I was born.
Pandemics and pandemic scares are really friggin' common.
How many of those resulted in worldwide lockdowns, masking mandates, and widespread testing requirements for travel? I believe the answer is: 1.
This is a very pedantic counter argument that leans on the fact that "pandemic" has too broad of a definition. There was nothing else like COVID in my (40 year) lifetime.
Half of them have, actually. The COVID response was heavily based off of the SARS response. The major difference with COVID is that it's the first time first world countries were asked to employ standard public health responses in many decades.
We've had, in this century, SARS, swine flu, MERS, ebola (× like 4), mpox (×2 apparently), Zika virus, and COVID-19. AIDS is a pandemic that's been going on since before I was born.
Pandemics and pandemic scares are really friggin' common.
Several of those were not pandemics (I assume this is why you used the phrase "pandemic scares" as a catch-all).
Regardless of official classification, I don't recall any of them having anywhere near the same global impact as COVID.
How many of those resulted in worldwide lockdowns, masking mandates, and widespread testing requirements for travel? I believe the answer is: 1.
This is a very pedantic counter argument that leans on the fact that "pandemic" has too broad of a definition. There was nothing else like COVID in my (40 year) lifetime.
Half of them have, actually. The COVID response was heavily based off of the SARS response. The major difference with COVID is that it's the first time first world countries were asked to employ standard public health responses in many decades.
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