Some people are comparing the public fear over the coronavirus to that of the onset of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s.

Both situations saw a rising number of cases, the fear of contracting the illness and a daily death count. One of the nation’s leading AIDS activists says that there are some similarities to the situations.

“The uncertainty, the kind of generalized fear and of course increasingly the people dying who are a total surprise,” says activist Sean Strub.

Strub was an activist fighting for healthcare and AIDS research beginning in the 1980s while waging his own life and death battle with the illness. The founder of POZ magazine and author of the memoir “Body Counts” says there are also significant differences between coronavirus and the early days of AIDS.

“The epidemic in the early years, it was very lonely,” Strub says. “It was a small group of us who were terrified and were dying. But were very frustrated because the rest of the country was not paying attention.”

Strub also says that there are some lessons learned from that crisis that can be applied to today.

“Those of us who’ve been at this rodeo before understand how government ineptness, indecision and indifference translate into people dying. Almost everything we’ve done in this country to address COVID, we should have done earlier,” he says.