With all the health crises we've been through, have we ever been this extreme before?

[TreasonousBastard]

The local Wallgreens is only allowing 10 people at a time in the store and had 6' markers at the checkout. CVS the same way.

Masks are everywhere, everything is closed and the roads and parking lots are beyond vacant.

Yes, I know this is bad-- but how much worse is it than SARS or the rest of them?

[gibraltar72]

1. Everything was open

And we had a steady hand on the wheel.

[MontanaMama]

2. Really?

I’ll take the bait, I guess. The CDC says less than 1000 people died in the SARS outbreak. Dr. Fauci says IF we do everything perfectly going forward, we will still lose 100,000-200,000 Americans. I’m pretty sure we won’t do everything perfectly going forward so we’ve not seen anything yet.

[uponit7771]

3. Swine flu was the worse since 1918 Spanish Flu but Obama doesn't shit in 18 wheeler cabs so his

... administration handled it relatively seamlus compared to what we have now.

Trump crapping in the seat of an 18 wheeler or looking like it

[sop]

4. The response to this national health crisis is the most far-reaching I've ever witnessed.

The effects of our near-total economic shutdown will persist for years. It's the worst crisis of any type in my lifetime.

[Shell_Seas]

5. I've never seen anything like this in my life.

And I'm 39.

[TreasonousBastard]

6. I haven't either-- and I'm 72.

[Shell_Seas]

20. I was trying to explain the magnitude of this to my 6 year old.

I told her, even if she lives to be 100, nothing like this will likely ever happen again.

[A HERETIC I AM]

7. I'm 60 and was in Athens during a military Coup d'etat in 1967.

Nope, me neither. Not even close.

I remember putting up a post back in 2008 that referenced the ambient noise one hears during the day, particularly if you live in a populations center. The dull sound of vehicles moving. Of traffic. Of commerce.

And in that OP I asked the question of the folks that were insisting we were headed toward a second great depression, if they actually thought that sound would go away. Well, it didn't back then.

And it hasn't quite gone away here yet, but I'll say this;

It is a fuck of a lot quieter.

[Shell_Seas]

21. During the Great Depression, unemployment was around 24%

With this thing, experts have been warning we may go over 30%

[GeorgiaPeanut]

8. In the 17th and 18th centuries

Plague, Smallpox and Cholera used to wipe out 10-30% of the world's population.

by heterogeneous immunity, a large portion of the population ends up surviving.

[GeorgiaPeanut]

9. I meant 18th and 19th centuries in the post above.

[tblue37]

14. unlike with Twitter, you can edit your DU posts. nt

[GeorgiaPeanut]

15. I'm new and getting the hang of it

I have hopes of learning as things go along

[tblue37]

16. The edit button is at the bottom right of the post's message box. Oh, and welcome to DU. nt

[GeorgiaPeanut]

17. Oh .. I just noticed it.

Thanks for the tip!!

[tblue37]

18. You're welcome. nt

[Marrah_Goodman]

10. We have never had to deal with something this bad before, not in our lifetimes.

Much worse then all of them. Higher death rate then most and spreads more easily and quickly then most with a long incubation period.

[Igel]

11. The health crisis or the economic one?

They're connected, but different.

The Spanish flu had a lot of things shut. Don't know that it was this extreme, but the SF was probably more lethal. So in terms of health, the US has seen (probably) worse.

In terms of self-inflicted economic catastrophe, no. There have been bank panics and recessions and depressions, but all of those are in some sense the natural outworking of processes in the economic system. Nobody ordered a bank panic, recession, or depression. Something happens, a person responds, a third, and fourth, and the next thing you know 150k people are all making decisions that all lead to the problem.

The "Great Recession" was because of a recession triggering a liquidity crisis. The "Reagan Recession" was triggered by a number of things that sort of pile up, and unemployment was overall worse then than in ''09 and '10.

This one is mandated, top-down, and is worse. People aren't primarily being laid off for lack of orders or customers, they're being told government's telling the business to close. This'll lead to a second wave, those who would have filled those orders and who are laid off because of a government-mandated lack of orders.

This one may trigger something baked into the current system, but the people saying that this is really just the natural recession as a result of a crappy economy are being daft.

[Ms. Toad]

12. SARS didn't spread as quickly

and was not contagious until after symptoms appeared.

That (and the long duration of this illness, and the extreme need for medical resources for each individual who is hospitalized, makes it significantly worse).

[Chainfire]

13. A lot worse

You didn't see doctors and nurses in a panic, you didn't see hospitals built in tents in Central Park, you didn't see refer semi truck parked at the hospital to receive the overflow of the dead, you didn't hear about letting old people die because there was insufficient equipment to keep them alive.

The last time we faced a health crisis like this was 1918, and it was bungled by politicians as well. Read about the Philadelphia Bond Drive Parade during that outbreak. The politicians won out over the health care professionals then and the city paid a big price in human life for it.

[JCMach1]

19. SARS was MORE deadly, but did not spread as easily... It could be A LOT worse

This is not Captain Trips, or Airborne Ebola, or Marburg