# Why do conservatives take some diseases seriously, but not others? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 21, 2021, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-take-some-diseases-seriously-but-not-others/947012 "2021-07-21T22:48:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2021, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-take-some-diseases-seriously-but-not-others/947012/141 "2021-09-07T16:06:21Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > The Spanish flu actually was not really much more deadly than normal flu, but the circumstances of the outbreak were such that it conincided with the demobilisation post WW1, so lots of sick soldiers were released into the community. Bad times. True, and also the flu was considered a military secret, since the enemy must not know how sick your soldiers were getting. That didn’t help. It was called the Spanish flu since Spain was neutral and were the first to make the problem widely known. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2021, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-take-some-diseases-seriously-but-not-others/947012/142 "2021-09-07T17:50:24Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > It was called the Spanish flu since Spain was neutral and were the first to make the problem widely known. Thank you! I knew it was misattributed as the “Spanish” flu, but I didn’t know _precisely_ why. TIL! ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2021, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-take-some-diseases-seriously-but-not-others/947012/143 "2021-09-08T22:07:10Z")
I’ve posted this elsewhere but [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ9WX4qVxEo&list=PLhyKYa0YJ_5BZ3gQleTk-PJqIejFf4Rh2) is a 6-part animated history of the 1918 pandemic, about an hour all told. It specifically mentions where the “Spanish” came from and that Philadelphia held a bond drive parade despite warnings and as **Voyager** mentioned, got hammered hard. It was put out on the centennial of the pandemic, a good eighteen months before Covid had been heard about. ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2021, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-take-some-diseases-seriously-but-not-others/947012/144 "2021-09-13T15:04:25Z")
I am not saying what you all have been saying isn’t important. It is. However, there is one thing I haven’t seen (though I might have missed it). In the USA, there is and has always been a strong vein of ‘anti-intellectualism’. Scientists and the like have always tended to be undervalued and mistrusted. The USA historically has done well, scientifically, but has been heavily influenced by ‘foreign’ scientists immigrating. In my career, I have seen/heard countless examples that scientifically knowledgeable people are ‘idiots’…that they know their little field well but in all other matters are morons. They need to be supervised by better careered, better paid, non-scientific supervisors in order to overcome the scientists stupidity. Those idiots know their limited stuff…but they don’t understand the real world or have any clue how it works. I have seen that often in watching COVID news over the past year. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2021, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-take-some-diseases-seriously-but-not-others/947012/145 "2021-09-13T15:07:41Z")
Duck, I think you have a point, which was that, in 2014, all the experts were pointing out that Ebola was very **difficult** to transmit, and that a pandemic of it was highly **unlikely**. As a result, conservatives played _up_ the threat of Ebola and spread hysteria about it, especially because Obama was president. Meanwhile, in 2020, all the experts pointed out that Covid was very serious and contagious, and conservatives therefore pooh-poohed the threat and denied it. It was always opposition to the experts. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-take-some-diseases-seriously-but-not-others/947012.md?page=7)