Has there ever been an illness like this before?

[NastyOldBag]

As in one that almost exclusively affects adults, particularly the elderly? Almost all other illnesses I can think of affect the young as well as the old as they are both vulnerable. Does anyone know why it doesn’t affect children so much?

Not that I want it to affect children, of course. Dh (who genuinely is normally very level headed and not into conspiracies) thinks it was invented by the Chinese in order to reduce the population. I don’t understand it at all.

Spanish flu?

Yes it’s quite convenient from a demographic POV

Spanish flu affected children hugely

no spanish flu was the opposite it affected the young

Spanish flu killed excessive numbers of the young, generally the older people survived better than 20-somethings.

Yes. Influenza. That's why old people and those with certain other conditions get the flu vaccine for free.

Yes there have been epidemics and pandemics that do not affect children as much, or do not affect certain other age groups.

Not of the same epedemic seriousness but chickenpox is usually mild for children but can be a very serious condition in the elderly

Normal flu is like this. Much more dangerous for the elderly and immunocompromised than for young / healthy people.

Young kids get the flu vaccine for free too. I didn’t realise flu didn’t affect kids.

I think tuberculosis is similar, it does impact children, as does Covid, but is primarily impacting adults, there appears similarities in the diseases, hence I guess why they think the tb vaccine may work, or why they started to look at it.

Yes, kids can get flu and it can be dangerous for them. The nhs site gives an over view.

Children are super spreaders of flu so they get vaccinated to protect older people

Even the 'mild' cases can be quite severe. It doesn't seem illogical to me that young healthy people can cope with it better. I'm sure thats the case for many illnesses

Spanish Flu. I think that lasted just over a year.

There was always bubonic plague. It killed indiscriminately, though.

Dnan lost 2 female cousins and her baby sister to Spanish flu in 1918. And this was after losing her dad, 2 uncles and 2 male cousins in WW1. They were tight knit families who lived next door to one another in the same street. She always kept their old photos on her dresser in her house up until 1980s and felt their loss keenly.
Nowadays TB, malaria, malnutrition kill thousands of people every year in the developing world - but flu is prob biggest infectious pandemic.

Children are super spreaders of flu so they get vaccinated to protect older people

Children can also get very ill through flu, especially if they have underlying conditions, and they can get pneumonia etc. Google it. That’s why many kids are vaccinated.

Many of the "childhood" diseases like measles and mumps are worse in adults - more severe symptoms and a higher risk of complications.

I think TB is more deadly in the elderly?

In terms of fatalities, I'm reading a book about the Victorian era at the moment and the number of fatalities in a particular outbreak of cholera dwarfed the predicted deaths due to covid 19, in a far smaller population. It really made me think about how what is such an alien and frightening situation to us in 2020 was actually not that unusual less than 200 years ago. Day to day life, lived in the shadow of deadly incurable illnesses, and only limited knowledge of how they were spread.

The demographic spread is normal for a coronavirus. Coronaviruses enters the cell through the ACE2 receptor. ACE2 is very low in children, higher in pregnancy and in men, smokers, people with high blood pressure, diabetics etc.
Different viruses have different mechanisms.

The first wave of the Spanish flu mainly killed the elderly and infants (1911-1917). The second wave of the Spanish flu returned in 1918 and this time it mainly killed young adults in their 20s to 40s.

Has there been a time before when such a large proportion of the population has been elderly? Demographics have changed as much as anything else.

Doh enter

I hadn’t considered that laniakea, that makes sense. I hate bloody conspiracy theories but for the first time in my adult life I have huge amounts of free time and am just reading complete rubbish online.

The plague?!