The death rate from Eurasian diseases were exacerbated by the political instability and disruption caused by Spanish conquests and colonial efforts, see:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110519091637.htm
If you had pathogen exchange, but slower and over a longer period of time without the warfare and colonization to go with it, it would give more time for resistances to build without as steep a population collapse. But how much a difference that would make, we don't know
>>18073646
There's pretty much no reasonable estimate by which the Aztec Empire only had 2 million people, that would mean Mesoamerica as a whole only had like 6-8 millionish people, no Mesoamericanist within like the last 70 years had taken estimates that low seriously. The Aztec Empire probably had like 4-8 million people, and while 10, 12 etc million is unlikely for them, it's way more likely then 2-3 million would be
>>18076926
It's a higher end estimate, and it misunderstands how "Mexico" is defined in the sources it's going off of with Borah, Cook, etc, but it's not an unreasonable one (EX: a recent paper estimated that Classic Maya civilization had 16m people in just a portion of it, not even all Mayas total or all of Mesoamerica at the time)
A safer bet would be like 16-18 million people at contact, but 22m is still plausible.
