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11
Apr
2018
Remember the Ebola virus? The first cases were reported in West Africa in 2013; it became an epidemic in 2014; it faded from prominence by 2016. In between those years, it killed about 11,300 people.
Although it had a 70 per cent mortality rate, Ebola was actually less lethal than the Spanish ‘flu in 1918, which took over 50 million lives – more than all the deaths caused by World War I. The Black Death of the 1300s killed even more, wiping out half of Europe’s population.
Ebola didn’t even exceed the deaths from car accidents and gun violence in the U.S. – each taking around 33,000 lives that year alone.
Nevertheless, Ebola evoked terror.
And a few people capitalized on it.
Categories: Soft Edges
Tags: Ebola, Linda Newkirk, prophet, revelation
8
Jan
2017
It’s hard to call dementia an epidemic. Epidemics typically involve infectious diseases. But when one in every 11 Canadians over the age of 65 has some form of dementia, some 700,000 Canadians, it’s hard to call dementia anything but an epidemic. Every year, about 25,000 new cases are diagnosed.
Apply those figures to any other illness – measles, cancer, AIDS – and you’d have not just an epidemic, but panic.
Categories: Sharp Edges
Tags: Dementia, Ebola, denial