Yes, of course all I'm doing is looking at the timeline and making guesses as to what increased/decreased cardiovascular disease. I'm free to do so, as I have no research or medical responsibilities! (which has some value here) There are many sources that agree that major infectious disease epidemics can be cardiovascular "time bombs" (ie 1918 Flu, possibly Covid). But to what degree? I suspect it plays a major factor, is poorly understood, and poorly reported. If true, it would REALLY underscore the need to vaccinate everyone against Covid, etc (possibly the introduction of antibiotics and vaccines en masse in the 60s also helped obliquely?). Beyond that, I suspect the hypertension drugs really helped, from the timeline. The takeaway may be that statins and stents helped, but not as much since they were "after the fact" (perhaps they'd have helped more if introduced before hypertension drugs?) Statins are relatively benign drugs, but some studies have shown them to help a proportionally small band of people. The efficacy of stents have also been questioned...surely there are more articles in all this!

PS-I wonder if some of my references are paywalled to my readers, but not to me (since I've paid). A bad habit?