Worst Epidemics in History | Hacker News Reader

Worst Epidemics in History

worldatlas.com

38 pointsjustinzollars14 comments

I was reading about this interesting fungal infection that primarily infects people with HIV/AIDS:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptococcosis

You can get it via inhalation and most commonly comes (at least for westerns) from people visiting places like South East Asia. The mortality rates are super high around 30-70%.

It must suck to have HIV, so many things can kill you, it's like handcuffs which prevent a lot of personal freedom.

I read about an HIV-infected doctor who got infected from attending a microbiology conference which had samples on display.

The Spanish Flu was one of the rarer ones that appeared to target only young healthy adults, but its believed that this was due to the Russian Flu weakening the immune systems of that generation first when they were children.

https://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2017/11/13/why_did...

What's up with the commas in 10,00,00,000?

"The Plague of Justinian, an epidemic that afflicted the Eastern Roman Empire, claimed nearly 10,00,00,000 lives. It was the worst epidemic in history, followed by the Black Plague."

It's the author giving you a hint that what follows is over 9000.

Please don't try to turn HN into Reddit.

Possibly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_numbering_system (”30,000,000 (thirty million) rupees is referred to as "3 crore rupees", which is written as 3,00,00,000 rupees with commas at the thousand, lakh, and crore places”), but the writer seems a native Spanish speaker to me. Maybe the site has an editor from India?

This is the Indian way of segmenting large numbers. Interestingly enough I only found out about it myself last night.

How was this published with wrong numbers? A simple wikipedia search gives you different estimates (parentheses)

Plague of Justinian 541-542 100,000,000 (25-50M)

Black Plague 1346-1350 50,000,000 (75-200M)

1918 Flu (Spanish Flu) 1918-1920 20,000,000 (50-100M)

what makes you think that Wikipedia has the right numbers? (if there is a discrepancy to begin with?)

There is a discrepancy, and Wikipedia is sourced... pretty hard to back the other one in this case isn't it ?

The linked article teases the claim[0] that 100 million people perished due to the Plague of Justinian, while Wikipedia[1] places the highest estimate[2] at 50 million.

[0] "Estimates believe 100 million people died during this time which was half the world population."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_of_Justinian

[2] "Some historians believe the plague of Justinian was one of the deadliest pandemics in history, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 25–50 million people during two centuries of recurrence, a death toll equivalent to 13–26% of the world's population at the time of the first outbreak."

Earlier epidemics were larger in a population-percentage sense. So much worse virality than later ones by far?

And I'd add another 'epidemic': WWII which spread across the planet, killing I think 56M?

"Spanish flu" is something of a misnomer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu

---

To maintain morale, wartime censors minimized early reports of illness and mortality in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States.[10][11] Papers were free to report the epidemic's effects in neutral Spain (such as the grave illness of King Alfonso XIII).[12] These stories created a false impression of Spain as especially hard hit,[13] thereby giving rise to the pandemic's nickname, "Spanish flu".[14]

...

The major troop staging and hospital camp in Étaples, France, was identified by researchers as being at the center of the Spanish flu.

---

So actually the "French Flu"

Reply on news.ycombinator.com