An excerpt from an 11-year old's journal in 1912 about a smallpox epidemic in her town and how it affects her family was published by a relative in the Coeur d'Allene newspaper today, and the observation that I have to make is that we are dealing with COVID-19 about like we did with smallpox in 1912, without a lot of advancement. Quarantine and isolation is in use, but with slightly less constitutional due process, and family social-distancing is practiced. The same family factors are still important --the father is missing work, and the extended family is buying groceries and leaving them on the doorstep for the sick family.
Let's not stop with the analogy, and continue to travel back in time.
The year is 1350, and the black plague is in full force in Europe. Without any knowledge of germ theory, social distancing is still practiced and is the rule of the day. Some towns are completely quarantined and no one enters or leaves. Some houses are boarded shut -- with the residents inside, who were destined to pass on from the plague. The religious leaders said the pandemic was punishment from God, and flagellating zealots wandered from town to town in hopes of redeeming society, and bringing a close to the largest wave of death ever seen by Europe (in recorded history). Doctors and everyone who could afford a mask, wore one. By the time the plague arrived again in the 1400s, King HenryVI banned kissing in England; and in the 1600s, the iconic doctor's mask with a large beak, made of leather and stuffed with fragrant flowers, was the standard of personal protective equipment.
Nothing much has changed. We seem to be coping with the pandemic much the same way we did with the same tools since the 1300s, with incremental improvements from century to century. Quarantine and isolation are still are best tools to fight COVID-19; masks and "face coverings" are the standard of personal protective equipment for leaving your home, if you can; and some religious leaders are suggesting the world is being punished for its sins. I am not disputing the truth of that, I am simply saying we are still saying the same things and doing the same things in response to a pandemic, as we did since the beginning of recorded history, despite the industrial revolution, the physics revolution and now the biotechnology revolution.
So what, if anything, has changed?
Hope that we can cure it -- a realistic hope. As a society we are not panicked because we know that in infectious diseases of the past, we have followed a process of researching and using vaccines to combat viral infectious diseases, including childhood diseases, and yes, that scourge of smallpox. We also have the benefit of centuries of data on the epidemiological curves (a mid-19th century discovery) and have some imperfect projection of how we will reach a peak, how high the peak might be, and when we can expect to see changes to the infection and death rate. Yes, it is imperfect, but it gives us an edge on predictability, that we didn't have in 1352, or even 1912. There was such a complete lack of hope during the Black Plague, and many thought the end of the world was coming, that there was wild drunkenness and orgies in defiance of the expected coming end of the world.
One other notable similarity -- our counts of deaths during the Black Plague in Europe are fairly accurate; yet, we have no accurate information about the true number of deaths in Asia from the Black Plague. Some things never change.
The compliance and calm has been strikingly successful, leaving us with the final observation that we have a realistic hope for a way to win in this war against COVID-19, in a way, our human predecessors did not. We are also able to adapt to our isolation through the humanity-changing technology, with our worldwide interconnection through the internet. Many (not all) are able to continue working online, ordering food online, and learning online. We are incrementally less disrupted, by these incredible changes to the way that humans connect.
Will this change us when COVID-19 subsides? If the changes after 9/11 and the anthrax attacks are any indication, we will be changed by this forever, in some major ways and some subtle ways. Will we move farther into cyberspace to connect, and thereby be less disrupted by the next pandemic?
Almost certainly.
Let's not stop with the analogy, and continue to travel back in time.
The year is 1350, and the black plague is in full force in Europe. Without any knowledge of germ theory, social distancing is still practiced and is the rule of the day. Some towns are completely quarantined and no one enters or leaves. Some houses are boarded shut -- with the residents inside, who were destined to pass on from the plague. The religious leaders said the pandemic was punishment from God, and flagellating zealots wandered from town to town in hopes of redeeming society, and bringing a close to the largest wave of death ever seen by Europe (in recorded history). Doctors and everyone who could afford a mask, wore one. By the time the plague arrived again in the 1400s, King HenryVI banned kissing in England; and in the 1600s, the iconic doctor's mask with a large beak, made of leather and stuffed with fragrant flowers, was the standard of personal protective equipment.
Nothing much has changed. We seem to be coping with the pandemic much the same way we did with the same tools since the 1300s, with incremental improvements from century to century. Quarantine and isolation are still are best tools to fight COVID-19; masks and "face coverings" are the standard of personal protective equipment for leaving your home, if you can; and some religious leaders are suggesting the world is being punished for its sins. I am not disputing the truth of that, I am simply saying we are still saying the same things and doing the same things in response to a pandemic, as we did since the beginning of recorded history, despite the industrial revolution, the physics revolution and now the biotechnology revolution.
So what, if anything, has changed?
Hope that we can cure it -- a realistic hope. As a society we are not panicked because we know that in infectious diseases of the past, we have followed a process of researching and using vaccines to combat viral infectious diseases, including childhood diseases, and yes, that scourge of smallpox. We also have the benefit of centuries of data on the epidemiological curves (a mid-19th century discovery) and have some imperfect projection of how we will reach a peak, how high the peak might be, and when we can expect to see changes to the infection and death rate. Yes, it is imperfect, but it gives us an edge on predictability, that we didn't have in 1352, or even 1912. There was such a complete lack of hope during the Black Plague, and many thought the end of the world was coming, that there was wild drunkenness and orgies in defiance of the expected coming end of the world.
One other notable similarity -- our counts of deaths during the Black Plague in Europe are fairly accurate; yet, we have no accurate information about the true number of deaths in Asia from the Black Plague. Some things never change.
The compliance and calm has been strikingly successful, leaving us with the final observation that we have a realistic hope for a way to win in this war against COVID-19, in a way, our human predecessors did not. We are also able to adapt to our isolation through the humanity-changing technology, with our worldwide interconnection through the internet. Many (not all) are able to continue working online, ordering food online, and learning online. We are incrementally less disrupted, by these incredible changes to the way that humans connect.
Will this change us when COVID-19 subsides? If the changes after 9/11 and the anthrax attacks are any indication, we will be changed by this forever, in some major ways and some subtle ways. Will we move farther into cyberspace to connect, and thereby be less disrupted by the next pandemic?
Almost certainly.
Interesting parallels with past pandemics! I would love to say that health care is a basic human right, but we are far from that at the moment, unfortunately.
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