Every Election Year Does NOT Have A Disease Outbreak – Why The Trending Meme Is Incorrect

Theories and opinions are like a**holes … everyone has one! However, some things should be left to the professionals, like disease outbreaks.

A meme has been circulating online attempting to prove that there is a new disease outbreak every election year; even providing correlating years. This is why we gotta stop believing everything on the World Wide Web…because no, it’s not a coincidence. It’s all wrong.

The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic did not develop or peak in 2004. According to the World Health Organization, the outbreak happened between 2002 and 2003, affecting 26 countries and resulting in more than 8,000 cases in 2003. The first case was documented in southern China on November 16, 2002.

The first reports of “Avian” Influenza H5N1 were documented in 1997 in Hong Kong, and again in 2003 in China. The deadliest year was 2006, with 115 cases and 79 deaths. In 2008, only 44 cases and 33 deaths were registered.

Swine flu, caused by the H1N1 influenza virus, developed as a pandemic between 2009 and 2010. The virus emerged in April 2009 in Mexico and the United States. On June 11, 2009, the WHO declared H1N1 a pandemic.

Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) is somewhat true, it did first emerge in 2012 in Saudi Arabia. However, the largest amount of cases were documented in 2014.

The Ebola virus first appeared in 1976. But it is correct that the largest outbreak was from 2014-2016 in West Africa, killing at least 11,300 people and infecting 28,616.

The W.H.O declared Zika a public health emergency on February 1, 2016, but the outbreak began in Brazil in 2015. There were also two relevant Zika outbreaks not mentioned in the claim in Micronesia and Oceania in 2007 and 2013-2014.

Finally, the coronavirus. The first case of the new COVID-19 was first reported in Wuhan, China, on December 31, 2019. On January 30 2020, the W.H.O declared the coronavirus epidemic in China constituted a public health emergency globally.OnSite! is here to teach y’all a few things.

Don’t be bamboozled or led astray!