It's interesting to look at the pandemic before Covid (in the West), which was the Hong-Kong flu of 1968-1970, with 1-4M deaths worldwide and 0.1 M in the USA.
It was mostly ignored, worse, its impact was minimized by upper class journals, all the while hospitals were running out of space.
(So comparisons with Covid are hard to make, since the response was so different.)
The medical sector paid attention after the fact though, and supposedly the reaction to it basically created the (postmodern?) discipline of epidemiology !
It was mostly ignored, worse, its impact was minimized by upper class journals, all the while hospitals were running out of space.
(So comparisons with Covid are hard to make, since the response was so different.)
The medical sector paid attention after the fact though, and supposedly the reaction to it basically created the (postmodern?) discipline of epidemiology !