It's estimated that half or more of all humans to ever be born died as children. The rate held pretty steady until around 1900, when it began to sharply drop. By 1950, it had dropped from 1 on 2 to 1 in 4. And now it's 1 in 25.
Anyway wanna take any guesses what happened around 1900?
There's a few reasons, like an increase of effort and awareness being put into things like public sanitation. But also. Edward Jenner figured out the smallpox vaccine in 1796. And then it's not until 1881 when the next working vaccine was developed (for anthrax). Which was followed quickly by vaccines for cholera in 1884, rabies in 1885, tetanus in 1890, typhoid fever in 1896, and bubonic fever in 1897. Since then, dozens of vaccines have been developed for all kinds of diseases that used to kill thousands to millions of people.
Nowadays, it's at the point that many people have never seen what the reality of diseases is. I know we lived through 2020, and Covid is and was horrible, but in terms of what disease can look like, Covid was child's play.
The images of rows of people on respirators were heartbreaking, but it doesn't really compare to the horror seeing children in iron lungs from polio.
Seeing people bleeding from their eyes like with Marburg.
Seeing people covered in blacken, dead flesh like with the bubonic plague.
Seeing people spraying fluids from both ends to the point of death within hours like with cholera.
Seeing people covered in lesions like smallpox.
Seeing people waste away over a period of months while their lungs fill with scar tissue like with tuberculosis.
Antivaxxers are all people who have had the privilege of living in a society where they don't have to witness the reality of disease. And even then, they're only really the first few generations to do so. My grandmother only passed away four years ago, and I remember talking to her about when the polio vaccine became available and what a godsend it was. How she would have done ANYTHING to make sure her children could get vaccinated. And it's not even a thing of the past. Other than smallpox, all of these diseases are still killing people today, mostly in places where people don't have access to vaccine and/or adequate sanitation.
And at this rate, it doesn't look like humanity is ever going to manage to eradicate a virus again. There's diseases like measles that were all but eradicated in my (very privileged) country that have now returned because these same antivax fuckers.
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