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Books – Mohamed Safwat:
Throughout human history, epidemics have struck with force and human violence, leaving millions of people dead, but in the end it is over. In more than one way the end of the epidemics was written and humanity continued on its path to development and development.
Under the title “How did the epidemics end?” The New York Times sheds light on the history of epidemics documented by history and how it ended, citing statements by historians who have lived through those epidemics.
According to historians, epidemics have two types of purposes, the medicinal one that occurs when injury and death rates decrease, and the social one when the fear of disease epidemic fades.
“When people ask when this is going to end, they ask about the social purpose,” says Dr. Jeremy Green, a medical historian at Johns Hopkins University.
The subject is endorsed by Alan Brandt, a historian from Harvard University, who believes that the end of the epidemic did not happen because of his subjugation, but because of the people who learned to coexist with him, since the conversation about the opening of the The economy depends on the end of the epidemic through political society and not on medical data.
University of Exeter historian Dora Farraga sees that, given past stories in history, the epidemic ends in not being afraid of it, and fear is often more dangerous than the epidemic itself.
In this regard, Dr. Susan Morey, from the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin, told a story about it that happened in a rural hospital in Ireland where she worked in 2014, where more than 11 thousand people died due to Ebola in West Africa. , and the epidemic seemed to be declining, and it did not. There are no cases in Ireland, but people’s fear was palpable.
He drew a “New York Times” to an article by Dr. Moore, published in the medical journal “New England”, during which he says: “On the street and in the wings, people are concerned that the wrong skin color is enough to scare the terror among the passengers of the bus or the train “.
“When an Ebola patient arrived at Dublin Hospital, terror spread among people and patients, and no one wanted to get close to him. The nurses hid and the doctors threatened to leave the hospital.”
Moore proceeded with his treatment on his own and died a few hours after his arrival, after which we learned that he was not sick with Ebola, and the World Health Organization announced 3 days after his death that the epidemic had ended. .
“If we are not prepared to fight fear and ignorance as much as we are and thinking that we are fighting any other virus, fear can cause serious harm to vulnerable people, even in places where you never see a single case, for infection during an outbreak, “wrote Murray. The fear epidemic has much worse consequences when it is complicated by issues of race, franchise and language. “
Black death and dark memories
Over the course of two thousand years, the plague struck various societies, killed millions and changed the course of history, and the fear that accompanied it doubled and more doubled with each pandemic that affects humanity.
The disease is caused by a strain of the bacterium “Yersinia pestis” that lives in fleas that live in mice.
Bubonic plague, known as black death, can be transmitted from one infected person to another through respiratory drops, so it cannot be eliminated simply by killing mice.
Epidemics of the Middle Ages
Mary Vissel, a historian at Johns Hopkins University, says that Justinian’s plague that first appeared in the 6th century had three different waves, the second in the 14th century and the third in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
In the 14th century, the plague killed half the population of China and a third of the population of Europe, and the historian Angulo de Tora, who looked at the epidemic, says: “It is impossible for a person to tell the truth of this epidemic and its horrible scenes, burying the dead in graves and piles “.
Another says: “People have adapted to the situation, get drunk, exercise their accumulated desires and ignore it as a colossal joke.”
The plague has not yet disappeared. In the United States, the infection spreads among prairie dogs in the southwest of the country, and can be transmitted to people, as confirmed by doctors, and people today have not spoken or are afraid of it.
It is unclear what causes the weak effect of the plague today. There are hypotheses that have not been scientifically proven among them that the cold climate killed fleas that live in mice, that the mice that carried the epidemic changed, or that the bacteria that caused it became less fierce.
Smallpox and victory with the vaccine
Smallpox is among the epidemics over which medicine has triumphed, by providing an effective vaccine against it, despite its persistence for more than 3,000 years, and the virus is not an animal. Therefore, its elimination in humans means its death completely … and its symptoms are clear.
In 1977, the last natural smallpox was recorded by a person named Ali Mao Malin, a chef at a hospital in Somalia, who recovered from the disease and then died of malaria in 2013.
“The epidemic paralyzed the movement of indigenous communities in Northeast America,” said Harvard historian Dr. David Jones in 1633.
William Bradford, the leader of the Plymouth Colony at the time, wrote: “If a patient sits on a mat, the blisters that fill his body adhere to the mats, and then he begins to bleed.”
The forgotten flu
In 1918, it killed 50 to 100 million people worldwide, and it’s not over yet, but it has evolved and taken shape with which we can live.
And in the fall of 1918, a prominent physician, William Vaughan, was dispatched to the Davins camp, writing that he saw hundreds die and that the virus revealed a lack of human inventions to destroy human life.
Other flu epidemics followed, and nothing was so bad.
How will the Corona epidemic end?
Historians say that one possibility is that the Corona pandemic may end socially before it ends medically. People may tire of the restrictions and start living their lives as the epidemic spreads and an effective vaccine or treatment is not found.
“I think fear associated with the epidemic is one of the psychosocial problems that lead to fatigue and frustration,” said Yale University historian Naomi Rogers.
This is already happening in some states, the governors lifted the restrictions, allowing hairdressers and gyms to reopen, defying warnings from public health officials that such steps are premature.
Dr. Rogers says there is a fight over who will decide the ending. This is an endless crisis, and he adds that trying to determine the end of the epidemic will be a long and difficult process.
