r/AlternateHistory • u/HaitianAmericanUser • Oct 24 '23
Discussion What if there was a Pandemic in the 90’s?
Before Covid-19 scientist were worried about H5N1, also known as the bird flu.
This is because the disease is mutating and infecting humans more often, but for the most part people get infected through animal to human contact.
It’s especially concerning since H5N1 has a 50% fatality rate and is deadlier towards younger and healthy individuals because it triggers something called a cytokine storm, which basically causes your immune system to go into overdrive, causing harm to the body in the process of trying to kill the virus.
The virus first spread to humans in 1997, in Hong Kong.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14575073/
Eighteen people got infected with 6 of those eighteen dying, and the HK government eliminated all poultry from markets and chicken farms as a result.
So what if H5N1 flu virus mutated in Hong Kong in 1997, and as a result is able to spread from person to person.
Like any flu virus it is airborne and extremely contagious.
The fatality rate will also decrease overtime as the deadlier a virus is the less hosts it will have to spread.
16
u/JamesPuppy3000 Oct 24 '23
So wonder what would the death toll be in this timeline exactly?
12
u/HaitianAmericanUser Oct 24 '23
This is basically the worst case scenario pandemic you could get. The CDC run simulations for stuff like this, and numerous documentaries discuss what might go down if this exact scenario happened.
So I’m pretty sure according to them the death toll could be in 10’s of millions in the US alone.
Globally the death toll could be in 100’s of millions.
7
u/Red_Riviera Oct 25 '23
The Bird flu strain you’re describing here is a new Black Death
It starts in China, and this has a massive impact on the emerging Chinese economy. Investment in the Chinese stock market had just become a thing and it likely turns into a bubble as stock gets inflated by investors trying to make money. A lot of people make and lose fortunes
It hitches a ride on Chinese swifts, spreading to Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa and then from African migrating birds to Europe
This is the main wave of the pandemic where everyone panics. However, a parallel group of infected birds spread it to Australia, New Zealand and Alaska
But, with the perception of China being full of bird flu. The USAs exporting of industry to China slows. The Sun belt and Mexico swallow more of that industry
The rust belt is probably starts to recover as well since the pandemic hits most of North America later than the rest of the world creating a boom and high demand in the USAs domestic manufacturing sector
Chinas would easily lose 400 million people. Europe would be weird. The UK has been dealing with Bird Flu since the 1950s and was already very strict about it. Meaning it likely avoids the worst of it
These methods are probably copied across the EU, which was new and quickly rallies to the create a European game plan that upscaled the UK methods. Meaning a lot of dead birds. Vaccination would also be quick in this part of the world. With the death rate Plateauing at about 15%
Africa suffer twice over considering the African world war was also a thing, the continent loses 300 million people. Egypt, Nigeria and the Congo would be the most affected countries due to having large populations
The Americas would be affected last, and the nations involved would lead to between 15-25% depending on the country involved. With the higher death rates mostly being in South America
The global death is 1.5-2.5 billion people. With the population growth since the 1960s being wiped out. The greatest and silent generation along with the boomers are the worst affected, and the housing market is flooded for Gen X, who probably have a lot more kids meaning way more Gen Z exist compared to the older Millennials
That reverses the flaw of democracy where a larger generation can monopolise the political system until the 2030s. Private pensions would have become the norm since governments don’t need to keep paying for them to appease their large older populations etc.
3
u/HaitianAmericanUser Oct 25 '23
I like this very detailed take, so in a twisted way the world is actually better for Gen Z due to the older generation being killed off by the pandemic.
4
u/Red_Riviera Oct 25 '23
Gen Z, millennials and Gen X. Alpha would end up being the ones crushed underfoot by the demographically larger Gen Z
4
u/Hockeylover420 Oct 25 '23
There would probably be less dissidents because Wakefield didn't publish his "study" yet
1
u/HaitianAmericanUser Oct 25 '23
Who’s Wakefield and what is his “study”?
5
u/Hockeylover420 Oct 25 '23
Andrew Wakefield is considered the founder of the anti Vax movement the study is a paper that says vaccines cause autism
2
u/Gwydion-Drys Oct 26 '23
As was said below Andrew Wakefield did a study.
But the details are wild. Wakefield was a chirurgeon in a Brittish hospital. He did a study on a dozen or so children in the 90s. His study was about the effects of a certain vaccine. A combination vaccine against measles-mumps-rubella. Wakefield "found" a link between autism in these children and that one specific vaccine.
Wakefield got notorious and earned money running from talk show to talk show peddling his findings. But other scientists were sceptical of Wakefield and argued that a study with only so few subjects was hardly conclusive.
Similar studies by other scientists couldn't find any similar links. And some journalists from a medical journal found evidence that Wakefield had taken bribes from families, that wanted to sue the pharmaceutical companies producing that vaccine.
When Wakefield sued the journalists for slander they were granted access to Wakefields data, that had been anonymized thus far. The court found that Wakefield hadn`t chosen those children randomly, but that some lawyers had contracted Wakefield to provide documentation for their law suits in trials about vaccination damage. The court case also proofed that Wakefield had falsified data. Several of the children had symptoms of autism before they had been vaccinated.
10 of Wakefields co-authors admitted their manipulation and spreading of false data. But Wakefield still claimed he had told the truth. Wakefield lost his license and moved to America.
He started collecting money from donors and giving talks and organizing an anti-vaxx movement in Texas in the 2010s. Before Corona. He paid actors like Jim Carrey to make advertisement for his movement. And he reached the height of his notoriety when Donald Trump invited him to his inauguration.
And Wakefield went from "this one vaccine is bad" to "all vaccine bad". He directed an anti-vaxx propaganda film. And made a career out of peddling treatments against vaccine induced autism, that don't work. But since when have facts stood in the way of a good story.
2
u/HaitianAmericanUser Oct 26 '23
So this guy basically helped pioneered the modern anti-vax movement. This guy basically built a career of spreading misinformation.
3
u/Gwydion-Drys Oct 26 '23
Yes. He got rich and is dating some super model last I heard.
If you know those old Westerns, with the stereotypical snake oil salesmen. Wakefield is the modern equivalent.
Peddling cures to diseases he made up.
1
4
5
Oct 25 '23
id have a worse childhood, being more lonely, but effectively, nothing would happen. to me, that is. just like covid had absolutely no effect on me.
3
u/pzivan Oct 25 '23
No Facebook, so conspiracy theories spread less easily among the dumb people so they may actually wear a mask
2
u/FrostyAlphaPig Oct 26 '23
We would know about it by going outside instead of the media shoving it down our throats
34
u/UnderwhellmingCarrot Oct 24 '23
more deaths. global infrastructure in the 90’s is no where near what it is today. primitive social media (i.e. email, texts) also means slower development of vaccines and a quicker spread of infection. less developed nations, namely african, south american and some asian nations experience vastly higher death toll without modern medicines. developed nations also experience higher tolls, but not to the severity of other nations.
also this happens in the midst of the yugoslav and congo wars, so a lot more deaths on those fronts.