Not About You - !!!NEW!!!

 I know I've used this song for a parody before but I think this version is a valuable message.

All About You Not About You not by McFly

It's not about you (not about you)
It's not about you, baby (it's not about)
It's not about you (not about you)
It's not about you

Yesterday, you posted something about this “flu”
You still need to wear a mask, It's not about you
Though you replied to me saying you know it’s “true”
It’s really not much to ask, it's not about you

And I will answer all your queries
If you force me to
But if you persist with your crazy theories
I must unfriend you
So listen close to the science, like we all must do
Just please put on a facemask
It's not about you, yeah

And I will answer all your queries
If you force me to
But if you persist with your crazy theories
I must unfriend you
So listen close to the science, like we all must do
Just please put on a facemask
It’s really not much to ask
Don’t make me take you to task 
It's not about you

It's not about you (not about you)
It's not about you, baby (it's not about)
It's not about you (not about you)
It's not about you, baby
It's not about you (not about you)
It's not about you, baby (it's not about you)
It's not about you (not about you)
It's not about you
It's not about you

From The Mind of Merc - Pandemics

Sometimes I find my mind wandering over various eclectic topics ad occasionally I am inspired to write some of them down. Today I was thinking about pandemics (inevitable, really).

A lot of people have been highlighting the theory about a pattern emerging in major plagues that seem to strike around every 100 years:

Year	Occurrence
1720	Plague
1820	Cholera
1920	Spanish Flu
2020	Coronavirus

Two things to note from this:

1)   They (sadly) are not the only plagues to strike – if you want to really depress yourself visit the Wikipedia epidemics page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics

2)   On a brighter note, we are able to improve our response to it

The death toll from each of these plagues reads thus:

Year	Occurrence	Death Toll
1720	Plague	c. 1,000,000
1820	Cholera	c. 1,000,000
1920	Spanish Flu	c. 17,000,000
2020	Coronavirus	c. 40,000*

So (with the exception of the Spanish Flu) the mortality rate is improving against pandemics and contagions – especially when you consider the ones that don’t ‘fit the pattern’

Year	Plague	Death Toll	Average per year
541-542	Plague of Justinian	c. 25,000,000	12,500
1347-1351	The Black Death	c.25,000,000	5,000
1855-1960	Third Plague Pandemic	c. 22,000,000	209.5
1960-2000	All reported plagues	52	1.3

Also:

- Smallpox (which killed 500 million in the last 100 years of its existence) was eradicated in 1977

- Polio cases decreased from 49,293 to 74 between 1975 & 2015 (eradicated in Europe in 1998)

- Malaria mortality fell by 60% between 2000 & 2015 (38 countries so far declared Malaria-free)

- Rubella cases dropped from 670,000 in 2000 to 15,000 in 2018 (Australia eradicated it in 2018)

I sincerely hope there will not be another repeat in 2120 but if there is hopefully we’ll again improve our fight against it.

*While admittedly the full toll of the current outbreak is not yet known, so long as people start using common sense rather than selfishness this should start stabilising - i.e. not increasing soon