From the Wall Street Journal:

Hasn’t medical science made some progress in the past 90 years? An article in yesterday’s Times of London notes that in 1919 the recommended precautions included mustard baths, Bovril (a salty meat extract, apparently), and salt water for gargling. Also, “the good effects of wine continue to be emphasized, and most agree in selecting port as the best of these.”

…

Sure enough, no flu pandemic has been even remotely comparable: The worst was the Asian flu of 1957-58, which killed an estimated two million people, including 70,000 in the U.S. (or about twice the annual average.) That’s been true despite the more than tripling of the world’s population, the advent of factory farming, “climate change” and planeloads of potentially disease-bearing people bouncing between Mexico City and Hong Kong and New York and Paris.

In other words, despite all the processes of globalization that are said to be leading us toward nature’s great comeuppance, trend lines indicate we are better equipped than ever to minimize the effects of a pandemic.

(via hopefully not someone on Tumblr because I forgot.)