You do realize there was a time where HIV/AIDS wasn't at all understood right? HIV/AIDS is not "technically a pandemic" it is a pandemic period. Pandemic is a geographic relative term it does not need to to "affect all populations/demographics." That is not a qualification. That appears to be some something you made up. The role of epidemiology is the same whether something is a flu pandemic or some other disease. The reason Dr Deborah Birx is qualified in her current role is because of her research in the early days of the HIV/AIDs pandemic. Nobody is claiming she is not qualified because that wasn't a flu pandemic.
It has nothing to with semantics. If you reread the OP's original comment they state:
>"The problem is that the west has nobody in power with living memory of a pandemic."
And that is not true. And this HIV/AIDS is particularly relevant because Dr Deborah Birx was chosen as response coordinator for the White House Coronavirus Task Force because of her work on a previous pandemic, that of HIV/AIDS.
> AIDS is not a pandemic. Pandemic requires epidemic, which requires rapid spread in a short period of time. AIDS has been slow. Calling it a pandemic is, IMO, motivated by politics (it mostly affects male homosexuals and sub-Saharan Africans). Ctrl-F for my discussion elsewhere in this thread.
So you're stating that AIDS was never an epidemic? Right. And that's based on your opinion I guess? Well there's actual facts too:
"In late 1983, the global presence of the mysterious virus motivated European authorities and the WHO to classify the growing number of diagnoses as an epidemic. In addition to the outbreak in the U.S., patients with similar symptoms were documented in 15 European countries, 7 Latin American countries, Canada, Zaire, Haiti, Australia and Japan. Of particular concern was an outbreak in central Africa among heterosexual patients."[1]
I mean, I’m just pointing out that it doesn’t match the definition of a pandemic or epidemic from Wikipedia unless you restrict the population in question to male homosexuals or sub-Saharan Africans and ignore that fact that it didn’t spread that quickly (an STD kinda cant spread that fast). But I’m not surprised that people classified it as an epidemic when it’s cause and mode of transmission was unknown, since all they saw was a rapid increase in diagnosis. But of course, given the way it spreads, it had been spreading, undiagnosed, for a while (probably years) in most places.
>"I mean, I’m just pointing out that it doesn’t match the definition of a pandemic or epidemic from Wikipedia unless you restrict the population in question to male homosexuals or sub-Saharan"
Since wikipedia seems to be the only bar for your argument. Here's two wikipedia entries where it's clearly stated they are both epidemic and pandemic.
Since epidemics are indeed specifically bound to a particular population, especially a geographical population, there can be no doubt the AIDS is an epidemic if it only epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa.
The question then is whether it is also epidemic in a greater region, for instance multiple continents or world wide. Since there are subsets of the population in all areas where it is widespread, it seems fair to say that it is pandemic.
Cause and mode of transmission are not relevant to the definition of epidemic or pandemic that you have selected.
So your argument goes like this:
P1. An epidemic is the rapid spread of a disease to a large number of people in a given population within a short period of time. (definition)
P2. AIDS has spread rapidly through people in sub-Saharan Africa and male homosexuals worldwide. (observation)
P3. People in sub-Saharan Africa are not a population. (assertion)
P4. Male homosexuals worldwide are not a population. (assertion)
P5. AIDS spreads sexually, via blood transfusions etc. (observation)
---------- (by P1-P5)
C1. Therefore, AIDS is not an epidemic.
P6. A pandemic is a widespread epidemic, spreading through multiple populations e.g. multiple continents or worldwide. (definition)
----------- (by C1 and P6)
C2. Therefore, AIDS is not a pandemic.
But from this, P3 and P4 are obviously false and P5 is not relevant since mode of transmission is not referred to in P1.
I don't feel like I'm at risk of getting AIDS, so it's a little hard for me to worry about AIDS as if it's a pandemic. But that doesn't mean AIDS isn't a pandemic. It's definitely epidemic according to the definition you picked - I'm just not part of the relevant populations through which it is spreading. You're definitely arguing poorly, since you demand we hold premises that are obviously false and you introduce irrelevant points that have nothing to do with your case.
My objection to labeling AIDS as a pandemic is the "rapidly" part of the definition of epidemic. I don't think AIDS spread all that rapidly. It took decades to become a problem in sub-Saharan Africa. And it was probably spreading for years among male homosexuals before anybody noticed anything. That would put it on the slower end of the continuum when measured against most communicable diseases that I can think of.
