Counter-Strike events seem to have less energy than ever. There are no concrete statistics to back this up, but the symphonies of Counter-Strike sound more like a small chorale. The crowds have gone from ecstasy, to gentle applause. If this is the case, pointing to a single cause is difficult. To list a few changes: - The makeup of teams has changed, with fan favourites such as NiP, SK and fnatic having all disappeared from the high levels of the scene.

Originally written on 2021-04-15, re-written in 2023. Special thanks to Loughborough University's excellent public record of emails. While they are now gone, they were instrumental in writing this piece. At this point, the news reporting had started to become common place, but was still just a mild curiosity to most of us. The 2009-2010 Swine flu epidemic, and Ebola reporting, had impacted the way I perceived media around disease outbreaks.