As politicians and expert scientific advisers queue up to fall over each other in upping their rhetoric and over-exaggerating their speculative claims & hyperbole, a little perspective is required. Simply looking at the bigger picture called ‘time’ and an observational period of more than a decade or so reveals the following genuine global emergencies:
1968 – Hong Kong flu, with an estimated death toll of 1 – 4 million.
1957 – Asian flu, with an estimated death toll of 1 – 2 million.
1918 – Spanish flu, with an estimated death toll of 25 – 50 million.
1910 – Sixth cholera pandemic, with an estimated death toll of 800,000.
1889 – Asiatic flu, with an estimated death toll of 1 million.
1852 – Third cholera pandemic, with an estimated death toll of 1 million.
1346 – Second bubonic plague, with an estimated death toll of 75 – 200 million.
541 – First bubonic plague, with an estimated death toll of 25 million.