That is a very high death percentage.

That is a very scary death rate, and the fact that it keeps cropping up here and there is worrisome.

They found some new early cases:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2013/06/17/wrd-saudi-arabia-sars-respiratory-virus-cases.html

Education, cleanliness, communication and technology. So I'm hopeful that when a bad one breaks out, we won't see the numbers as seen in history.

Though, to be honest, it doesn't mean that there couldn't be some major issues that would need to be dealt with as swiftly and effectively as possible.

While a 1918-style or worse pandemic is extremely unlikely(we're talking odds in the millions to one, at least), I'm afraid that most scientists agree that the next novel virus that manages to kill hundreds of thousands or even a few million people may not be so much a question of if, but when.

Although it is easy enough to come up with arguments that work against us too, e.g. ease of travel and hence transmission, prevalence of malnutrition and chemically compromised immune systems.

We are a vast supply of poorly defended food, which sooner or later something will figure out how to eat.

The best explanation for why WWI occurred is given by the Communists, as the working class economically declined and more and more of the petite bourgeoisie (Lower Middle Class, doctors, demists, foremen, lawyers and other low end supervisors and professionals) loses income and end up earning only as much as common workers, you have a build up of internal stresses. This forces the upper middle class (the 1% and the people around them, the upper 10%) uses fear of foreigners to contain the masses. Thus come August 1914, no one in any leadership position in Europe or America (with the possible exception of the Pope) was in a position to prevent a war. Thus WWI broke out, for it was easier to go to war then to prevent it.

WWI continued for four long years for neither side was prepared to tell its people that they would have to pay for the war. The cost was to be carried by the other side when their won and impose a peace treaty on the other side.

Now, Actually Fighting WWI increased the economic power of the working class, it that they was a shortage of workers and wages went up. In many ways this was resented by the 1% who took huge efforts to contain these wage increases (For example a mandatory 7 days a week 12 hour days AND onr 24 hour day within the week was imposed in US Steel workers during WWI, this was to keep wages down by minimizing the number of workers needed). These demands lead to workers strike during 1917 and 1918, thus the allies were as willing to sign a peace treaty as were the Germans. Both sides wanted the troops back home to put down the various communist revolts that were feared or actually occurring (Russia went Communist in November 1917, but Germany also went Communist in 1919, some of the German states actually were communists in the 1919-1921 period, Hitler, as a soldier in Bavaria actually helped install one, then when that government feel he was taken prisoner, noticed he was a good speakers and recruited as a Spy, which was his job when he joined the Nazi Party). Hungary, Austria, Italy all had Communist Revolts in parts of their Country during this time period.

Anyway, during 1914-1918 period wages went up, and employers hated it. The Traditional America Solution to high wages, to import more immigrants was cut off due to WWI, thus you saw the first serious efforts to get African Americans and other people from the South, especially Appalachian, to move north for work. All of this was attempts to keep wages DOWN. In the US, wages had been poor for decades, thus immigration had shifted from Western Europe (where people were earning a much or more then Americans) to Southern and Eastern Europe (Where wages were less). Many commentators called the wages sub-standard at best, but it is what the top 1% wanted to pay.

Into this mess, the Spanish flu hit. The worse hit were those people working the hardest, the 20-30 years old. Young children were also hit, but it is well known children in high stressed households suffer high stress themselves. Older Workers tend not to die in the same numbers (most had less stressful jobs) and as you moved from the Major cities, the death rate dropped (Rural America had less stress due to economic boom caused by increase in demand for food due to WWI). This aspect of the Spanish flu is ignored for people are uncomfortable with the subject that the reason people died was they were under stress.

The stress was worse in Industrial areas (The West Virginia Coal War of 1921 is a fine example of how that stress built up and lead to the largest revolt in US History after the Civil War, 20,000 men took up arms, and that is just the mine workers) and thus the Spanish Flu hit those areas the hardest.

The same economic stresses have been building up since Reagan, the Rich have gotten richer, the poor poorer. The Working class (What most Americans mean by the term Middle Class) are under increase stress. Could we have another 1917-1924 period? A period ignored in most history books for it shows people in revolt against the 1%, but with massive strikes, revolts and die off due to disease.

I do find WWI and the leadup to it a better analogy to our current situation than anything since. And you get at the main point, we have a lot of people, but they are not healthy, happy people, they are unhappy, poorly nourished, stressed-out, angry people, most of them.

And if you go back thirty years or so from WWI, what do you find: Grant and his administration, and the Robber Barons and all that. It fits.

And all the people in charge are disconnected time-serving hacks.

But it still has to wait for the right disease to come along.

The problem actually started under Lincoln, no one likes saying so, but the GOP under Lincoln was pro-business and anti-labor (In fact it appears the reason two of the three GOP Senators that voted to NOT to remove President Andrew Johnson, was that given they was no VP at that time, the Senator Pro-temp would have become president, and he was known to be pro-labor, in fact some people believed that was the Stevens's plan when he had the house impeach Johnson, to put a pro-labor person as President).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaddeus_Stevens

Anyway, Grant did push through the 1871 and 1875 Civil Rights Acts. The 1871 is still on the books it is the law outlawing any act "Done under the color of law" that harm's someone's Civil Rights. Its nick-name is the the Anti-KKK act, for it was aimed at the post Civil War Klan.

The 1875 Act was almost the same as the later 1964 Civil Rights Act. Grant pushed it through and then used it. The Supreme Court in the 1880s then ruled that Act unconstitutional for the Post Civil War Amendments that gave congress the right to protect Civil Rights was ruled to mean only those rights mentioned in the Constitution itself NOT the Bill of Rights. This was made for it was feared that white working class people might be able to use the 1875 Civil Rights Act against Business and the US Supreme Court of the 1880s was NOT going to permit that.

Lincoln had named many of the members on the Supreme Court (It had grown old since the last set of appointees under Jackson), Johnson was given no chance to appoint anyone (Congress even reduced the size of the Court to make sure there was no vacancy for Johnson to fill). Grant appointed many members, but he seems to have deferred to the legal community, which was becoming more and more anti-Labor, something Grant did not seem to have seen. In fact, Grant's position on reconstruction was quite clear, he was pro Stevens and pro-Civil Rights and thus his attempts at a Third Term was denied for it was feared he would pass another 1875 Civil Rights Act AND appoint Justices that would uphold it.

Now, Grant did not understand the economy and Government role in the Economy, thus we had the start of the Long Depression due to Congress's desire to pay off the Civil War Debt and end the Income Tax (Both done in 1875, seems to have been part of the deal to get the 1875 Civil Rights Act passed). The Long Depression lead to the farmer's political revolt of the 1880s and 1890s (and the related Free Silver Movement, which was to cause inflation and give the economy a kick) but such economic jump starting was not viewed as the role of Government in the 1870s (but became clear it was the role of Government from the 1880s onward).

No, Grant was not to blame. The GOP controlled Congress of Lincoln to Grant (Interrupted occasionally by a me-to Democratic Congresses from 1866-1896) did most of the damages (just like most of the New Deal was done NOT by FDR, but the Democratic Congress of 1931-1947 and mostly the heavy Bryanites of the 1931-1937 period, i.e before the court packing fight of 1938).

If you want to use Grant to show a time period, then that is correct, but Grant was NOT Reagan, Grant was willing to get laws passed to protect poor and working class people, something Reagan was incapable of doing.

He is actually a very interesting person, a great historical figure.

I should have said that. It's really the whole post-reconstruction movement that I'm talking about, I'm comparing Grant with Raygun, although that is an analogy that is easy to attack, which I suppose is why I chose not to have to defend it. But now you have made me do that. I think Grant was Raygun-like in some ways, or vice-versa, being a political tool in particular, and the era that followed Grant had many things in common with the post-Raygun era politically and economically, even though Raygun and Grant were as people wildly unlike. The corruption, the boom-and-bust cycles, the hands-off government and anti-government attitudes, the economic craziness.

But the militarism was different, it wasn't until McKinley and Roosevelt the First that we really got into the war is good mindset again. I suppose after the Civil War it took a while for people to forget.

And yes the corruption was there all along, always has been.

And one can make a good argument that we still are living with the same authoritarian divisiveness that caused the civil war.

This is slowly gaining pace, it seems. The first case was identified last September.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East_respiratory_syndrome_coronavirus

And yet, SARS, too, fell apart before it could become a true pandemic.

All I'm saying is, let's not be totally off-guard, but let's not be TOO fearful, either. This may very well end up being absolutely nothing like 99% of novel viruses end up being, and so far, I've seen nothing that really indicates that this will be any exception.

can take rational steps to contain this thing??

Maybe our CDC could help out, but I suppose the female epidemiologists wouldn't be welcome there.......

Remember when we had to chopper the Jewish soldiers stationed there during the Gulf War out to a ship in the Persian Gulf, because our great allies the Saudis don't allow Jewish services on their soil?

I can't wait 'til we free ourselves from their oil trap (if we ever do).

Worse, Islam had no problems with Christian or Jewish Chaplains (Less tolerate of other Chaplains but still tolerate), it is the Wahhabi branch that is so radical. It is anti-everything. It makes Christian Fundamentalist look liberal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahhabi_movement

The House of Saud (the ruling family of Saudi Arabia) and bid Laden are of this branch of Islam. Just remember every time you tank up your car, you are paying both groups.

LONDON (AP) — A mysterious new respiratory virus that originated in the Middle East spreads easily between people and appears more deadly than SARS, doctors reported Wednesday after investigating the biggest outbreak in Saudi Arabia.

More than 60 cases of what is now called MERS, including 38 deaths, have been recorded by the World Health Organization in the past year, mostly in Saudi Arabia. So far, illnesses haven't spread as quickly as SARS did in 2003, ultimately triggering a global outbreak that killed about 800 people.

An international team of doctors who investigated nearly two dozen cases in eastern Saudi Arabia found the new coronavirus has some striking similarities to SARS. Unlike SARS, though, scientists remain baffled as to the source of MERS.

In a worrying finding, the team said MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) not only spreads easily between people, but within hospitals. That was also the case with SARS, a distant relative of the new virus.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/new-mers-virus-spreads-easily-deadlier-sars