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Comment by JackPoach | Hacker News Reader

Though coronavirus is very different in many respects, it's worthwhile (especially if you are older like me) to remember the history of AIDS. We've learned to live with it and limit its spread very effectively in the western world.

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https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/deaths-and-new-cases-of-h...

HIV deaths were 348k in 1990 (which is the earliest year I found stats for on a quick googling). Around 4m people died from covid over the past year. We definitely would not want covid's mortality trajectory to follow HIV's, which peaked at 1.95 million, a 5.5x multiple of 1990's figure.

Yeah, we learned to limit its spread, but with "masks" (condoms).

Not sure you can call it limiting the spread. We slow the spread. Which potentially prevents overrunning our hospital.

It seems like eventually everyone is going to get it. Slowing the spread also deepens the chain of infections and may lead to more mutation.

AIDS never spread broadly among heterosexuals who did not share needles or have partners who are bisexual or shared needles. Everyone is at risk for covid, like the flu.

Spoken like someone whose knowledge of the world ends at the US border. Hate to be the bearer of unpleasant news, but there are parts of the world where HIV was mostly a heterosexual disease. The nature of the main infected population depended upon how HIV was first introduced a country and what cultural behaviors helped or hindered its spread.

Even in Eastern Europe currently most HIV transmissions happen with heterosexuals. I was surprised to learn that in the Western countries it is mostly spread by MSM (men having sex with men) and IDU (intravenous drug use).

This certainly was not the experience of other countries such as South Africa where the majority of transfer (roughly 80%) was via heterosexual transfer.

Reference: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8420583/

The continent of Africa would tend to disagree with such an assertion.

Heck, in some countries, more than 15% of HIV infections are contracted at birth.

https://www.verywellhealth.com/hiv-statistics-5088304

This is plain false. The majority of infections have been across heterosexuals, and also by blood transfusions.

Plenty of people got it from blood transfers, among other things.

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