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That’s true. I don’t remember any other viruses being this contagious for a long time. Avian flu, swine flu, not nearly as contagious as Delta and spreading asymptomatically.

Ebola - not as contagious. Perhaps AIDS was the closest.

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Measles, Chickenpox, Rubella, Mumps, Polio, Pertussis, Smallpox, HIV as you mentioned, SARS, Diphteria and the common cold all have basic reproduction numbers >= original Covid, per wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number

None of them were “novel” or recently appeared — as the ones I mentioned

What’s your definition of “recent”? Some of us remember when HIV starting infecting our friends. It doesn’t seem that long ago to me.

I mentioned HIV in my comment, speaking about recent. The reply mentioned all kinds of viruses besides HIV that weren’t recent — so it was a strawman.

… and yet hiv doesn’t spread by simple being close to somebody. How can you say it’s as much as contagious as covid?

AIDS, (HIV) spent a long time in human the population before it became a serious problem.

Right. I didn’t really mean the speed but the infectiousness, because people were asymptomatic when infecting each other during the incubation period. It was just really long with AIDS

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