- 07 Sep 2018 10:31
#14944826
@Victoribus Spolia The charts you used in your post here note rates of mortality for different diseases. This is different from reported incidences. With improved medical care and treatment, sometimes even simply supportive, can greatly reduce rates of mortality for different diseases. It should be noted that the quality of medical care will depend on how much money you have. Due to improved access to medical treatment and care in the US, people who are infected with measles have a roughly 0.1-0.2% chance of dying. However, in less developed countries, the mortality rate can be 25%.
What you don't seem to understand about the graphs and numbers you posted is that while mortality rates went down during the 20th century with a correlating rise in medical care and general hygiene, infection rates generally remained constant. In 1920, there were over 450,000 reported cases of measles. In 1941 almost 900,000 cases of measles were reported (it should be noted that measles was historically under-reported, so either 1941 was a year in which there were large outbreaks, or medical reporting for that year was more accurate). Up to the 1960s before the vaccine was released, the average number of cases of measles per year remained roughly 400,000. Following widespread vaccination, in 1968 the number dropped to about 150,000 and has continued to fall. Those numbers are not mortality rates, but incidence rates, which remained high before vaccination of measles, diphtheria, smallpox, etc.
The decline in mortality did not mean that the general rate of infection was also dropping dramatically. Measles, for example, was a commonly-contracted childhood illness until the introduction of the measles vaccine, with infection rates being fairly constant until 1968.
Simply put, it is safer and better for one's health to get vaccinated.
What you don't seem to understand about the graphs and numbers you posted is that while mortality rates went down during the 20th century with a correlating rise in medical care and general hygiene, infection rates generally remained constant. In 1920, there were over 450,000 reported cases of measles. In 1941 almost 900,000 cases of measles were reported (it should be noted that measles was historically under-reported, so either 1941 was a year in which there were large outbreaks, or medical reporting for that year was more accurate). Up to the 1960s before the vaccine was released, the average number of cases of measles per year remained roughly 400,000. Following widespread vaccination, in 1968 the number dropped to about 150,000 and has continued to fall. Those numbers are not mortality rates, but incidence rates, which remained high before vaccination of measles, diphtheria, smallpox, etc.
The decline in mortality did not mean that the general rate of infection was also dropping dramatically. Measles, for example, was a commonly-contracted childhood illness until the introduction of the measles vaccine, with infection rates being fairly constant until 1968.
Simply put, it is safer and better for one's health to get vaccinated.
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