Are the high numbers of deaths in the 1500s old world diseases spreading in the new world? If so, that seems to overestimate natural risk: the world’s current population isn’t separated from a larger population that has lots of highly human-adapted diseases.
In the other direction, this kind of analysis doesn’t capture what I personally see as a larger worry: human-created pandemics. I know you’re extrapolating from the past, and it’s only very recently that these would even have been possible, but this seems at least worth noting.
Are the high numbers of deaths in the 1500s old world diseases spreading in the new world?
Yes, and deaths are especially high in the 1500s given my assumption of high underreporting then.
If so, that seems to overestimate natural risk: the world’s current population isn’t separated from a larger population that has lots of highly human-adapted diseases.
Agreed. Personally, I guess the annual probability of a natural pandemic causing human extinction is lower than 10^-10.
In the other direction, this kind of analysis doesn’t capture what I personally see as a larger worry: human-created pandemics. I know you’re extrapolating from the past, and it’s only very recently that these would even have been possible, but this seems at least worth noting.
I think it is interesting that:
There has been a downward trend in the logarithm of the annual epidemic/pandemic deaths as a fraction of the global population, with the R^2 of the linear regression of it on the year being 38.5 %. I guess the sign of the slope is resilient against changes to my modelling of the underreporting. One may argue the aforementioned logarithm will increase in the next few decades based on inside view factors such as technology becoming cheaper and more powerful. Nevertheless, technology also became cheaper and more powerful during the period of 1500 to 2023 covered by my data, but these still suggest a decreasing logarithm of the annual epidemic/pandemic deaths as a fraction of the global population.
Are the high numbers of deaths in the 1500s old world diseases spreading in the new world? If so, that seems to overestimate natural risk: the world’s current population isn’t separated from a larger population that has lots of highly human-adapted diseases.
In the other direction, this kind of analysis doesn’t capture what I personally see as a larger worry: human-created pandemics. I know you’re extrapolating from the past, and it’s only very recently that these would even have been possible, but this seems at least worth noting.
Thanks for the comment, Jeff.
Yes, and deaths are especially high in the 1500s given my assumption of high underreporting then.
Agreed. Personally, I guess the annual probability of a natural pandemic causing human extinction is lower than 10^-10.
I think it is interesting that: