Since we’re finally done with the brunt of this Covid business, we can start rebuilding our normal lives again. We get to meet up with people, no longer need to wear face masks all the time and we can go visit a movie theater or watch our favorite band play a show at the local pub. It’s almost like none of the last year happened. And if you look at how often we’ve survived pandemics, it’s no wonder we’re so fast to recover.
Let’s take a look at some of the pandemics we’ve survived in the past.
Asian Flu (1957)
Killing over 2 million people, of which 70,000 people in the US alone, this China-based virus was a particularly nasty one. The virus went on a killing spree for almost two years and didn’t take long at all to become a global disease.
Justinian Plague (541-549)
Nothing quite says “bad plague” like those early medieval ones, don’t it? According to records, this bubonic plague pretty much wiped out half the population in Europe. Naturally, this was a time when a simple cough could be threatening to your life so in hindsight the damage it did wasn’t too surprising.
Spanish Flu (1918)
The best time for a new disease to manifest itself is right after a brutal war. Because of the situation at the time, this flu was able to spread to about 500 million people and take the lives of 50 million of them. This was one of the first diseases to also target young, healthy adults.
