[MahomesMagic]

Originally Posted by O.city

https://reaction.life/we-may-already...sunetra-gupta/

Good read from the lady at Oxford.

Gupta

Why don’t we get flu pandemics anymore? Because before 1918 there was not sufficient international travel or densities of individuals to keep flu on as the sort of seasonal thing it is now. Pockets of non-immune people would build up, and then they would be ravaged.

That was the pattern until the end of the First World War. Since then, many of these diseases have become endemic. As a result of which we are much more exposed to diseases in general and related pathogens, so if something new comes along we are much better off than we would be if we hadn’t had some sort of exposure to it.

If coronavirus had arrived in a setting where we had no coronavirus exposure before, we might be much worse off. It also seems that in addition to protection against severe disease as a result of exposure to related coronaviruses, some fraction of us seem to be resistant to infection.