In all my years of causing havoc on earth, it had only been recently that I have heard the word Pandemic.
The world is currently on lockdown, which means life I knew it no longer exists as I am currently under house arrest, due to the Coronovius, COVID-19 pandemic.
With 80% of my work being cancelled or postponed due to social distancing I have a bit of time on my hands, and its with this in mind, I am asking those big questions.
What is a Pandemic?
According to Wikipedia Pandemic derives from the Greek Pan - all and Demos - People, so roughly translated All People!!!
Rather a loose term to say the least, which does not really mean anything, do you agree?
Wikipedia goes on to say it's an Epidemic of Disease,
Epidemic is defined as "the rapid spread of disease to a large number of people within the population, within a short space of time."
For instance when 15 cases per 100,000 occurred for 2 consecutive weeks of meningococcal it was deemed an epidemic.
From a data analysis point of view this represents an infection rate of 0.015% of the population!
This seems quite a low threshold for a disease to be classed as an epidemic in my very humble opinion.
Anyway I digress slightly, a Pandemic is an epidemic of disease that has spread across a large region, such as multiple continents or worldwide, as is currently being reported, affecting a significant number of the population.
Interestingly seasonal flu is always excluded from the pandemic status due to its occurence being in large regions of the globe simultaneously, rather than it spreading worldwide, which I think could explain the why we have various strains of pissed off flu, such as the Spanish and Bird varieties that decided that wanted in on the action of this pandemic thing.
Now my interest is really peaked....
How many Pandemics have there been over the years?
When I looked into this, I am surprised that there is anyone left on this earth, considering the number of pandemics have been recorded.
It's as if there is some bacteria or virus that is always trying to kill off the human race!
Don't believe me?
Here are the most noticeable pandemics over the ages:
Table 1: History of Pandemics through the ages:
Interesting to say the least.
What are your thoughts?
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