I don’t think we give enough weight to just how devastating smallpox was to humanity.
Until we eradicated it, smallpox killed an estimated 500 million people. It continuously killed people from Ancient Egyptian Pharaohs all the way to people in the 1980s. Smallpox collapsed whole civilizations. Eradicating it imo is one of humanity’s greatest victories.
For perspective:
The highest estimate for Spanish Flu deaths is 100 million.
I don’t think we give enough weight to just how devastating smallpox was to humanity.
Until we eradicated it, smallpox killed an estimated 500 million people. It continuously killed people from Ancient Egyptian Pharaohs all the way to people in the 1980s. Smallpox collapsed whole civilizations. Eradicating it imo is one of humanity’s greatest victories.
For perspective:
Smallpox is monstrous and if it comes back I will fucking sob. It’s horrific, it’s terrifying. Just measles making a comeback is miserable.
Thank Andrew Wakefield and RFK Jr. And many others. Anti-vax shit isn’t new, but these motherfuckers are.
Yes, but consider how many likes we’ve gotten from our mommy groups. /s
Looking at photos of smallpox victims and survivors is nerve wracking. I got vaccinated for smallpox despite it being extinct in the wild.
We were so fucking close to doing that to polio and measels and other diseases, but they are making a comeback due to those motherfuckers.
And that too when a large part of the world (India, China, later Turkey and Europe) actively inoculated their population against it.