Vin, polio R factor around 5-7, similar_to_covid_delta_variant.
Iron lungs were very scary things to parents of young children, not quite the same as respirators used for Covid patients whose lungs are too congested or inflamed to inflate, but watching your child have to rely on the variation in air pressure inside a large machine in order to get any oxygen into their lungs is traumatic.
Think of the impact on your life if you had to rely on a mirror to see anything other than the machine that was pumping air in your lungs for you.
No cell phone. No trips to the bathroom. No scratching your nose if it itched.
Yes, some symptoms of polio were quite mild, such as a lack of development of a set of muscles that could be compensated for by other means, but polio was widespread back in the day.