Not a lot of young people know a huge amount of people in the risk groups, it's easy to dismiss if it hasn't affected someone you know.
With Covid it was easy people to think it wasn't really a big deal, it reduced the appetite and compliance necessary to keep the pandemic contained.
What if there was an epidemic virus, that, within a year +/- a few months of contraction, killed hosts over the age of X (20, 50, 70), regardless of underlying health conditions.
It raises some interesting questions! The three I’ve come up with so far:
(1) what does a society look like, without (mature, older, very old) people? What surprising positive and negative evolutions occur?
(2) how would our current societies react to the gradual onset and eventual global expansion of such a disease?
(3) if we found a cure for the disease a few (now, shorter than previously) generations later, who would take it?
It’s kind of similar Lord of the Flies, except instead of a shipwreck, it’s a disease and it happens gradually, to preexisting societies and cultures.