Pandemics

I know the current coronavirus scare is all the rage. It deserves the attention because of its spread rate and continental leaps on the globe. Scary to think it could spread to our own neighborhood, region and home.


Scarier still is the lack of a vaccine to protect us. I know they are working on it and will eventually have something, but meantime early victims are in doubt as to their recovery and long-term effects. Of course, we project all of this on ourselves and families. Yes, scary.


A moment of pause, please. Just a reminder, that in the early 80’s hundreds of thousands of men were falling ill from a mysterious symptomology and the medical community was powerless to solve it let alone treat it. Time did uncover treatments, but patients still died all too often.


This epidemic turned into a global pandemic. It eventually claimed the lives of 32 million people (men, women and children). That is 43% of the infected patient count of 74.9 million. A death rate of 43%! These numbers are through 2018. The disease continues to take its toll.


Now, put that in perspective of coronavirus deaths of 2% or less of infected patients. 3000 lives have been lost globally so far. Of course that number will rise significantly before the epidemic is behind us. Still, 2% versus 43%. Shocking.


Yes, HIV/AIDS has the stigma of being a gay disease. Funny; the women and children who died weren’t gay. Stigma kills just the same whether rationale is sensible or not. Death is death. Disease is disease. It affects all of us in one way or another.


Best we pay attention and do what is necessary to reduce the toll of all disease among us.


Fact: 37.9 million AIDS patients were alive in 2018. 770,000 died that year from the disease.


March 5, 2020