That is true! Maybe the disease burden increases when new pathogens are introduced but eventually reaches a balance.
But it doesn’t seem to completely remove the effect from accumulating multiple pathogens in the community, a population with covid+flu (or any other combination of pathogens with no cross-immunity) in circulation and adapted to live with them will probably still have a higher disease burden than a population with just the flu in circulation and adapted with them.
Quite likely that the 19th century was worse than before due to increased population density and global connectivity, and I shudder to imagine what if AIDS became established in humans in the 19th century instead of the 20th.
That is true! Maybe the disease burden increases when new pathogens are introduced but eventually reaches a balance.
But it doesn’t seem to completely remove the effect from accumulating multiple pathogens in the community, a population with covid+flu (or any other combination of pathogens with no cross-immunity) in circulation and adapted to live with them will probably still have a higher disease burden than a population with just the flu in circulation and adapted with them.
Quite likely that the 19th century was worse than before due to increased population density and global connectivity, and I shudder to imagine what if AIDS became established in humans in the 19th century instead of the 20th.