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A pandemic or epidemic can end in more than one way, as history has shown, and the question, which concerns the current Covid-19, is who decides the end of the crisis and if everyone agrees. Historians point out that generally in a pandemic there is a medical or social purpose and these two do not necessarily go hand in hand. The consequence is that tensions can arise between scientists and some citizens.
The medical end comes when new cases and deaths gradually disappear without rekindling. The social end occurs when the fear of infection disappears among people. Unfortunately, the latter can happen before the former. In other words, an end may be declared prematurely not because the infectious disease is gone, but because people are tired of living in fear and because they have become accustomed to living with the disease.
“When people ask, ‘When will all this end?’ They wonder about the social purpose, “Johns Hopkins University medical history historian Dr. John Green told the New York Times.
This already seems to be the case in several countries. As Harvard University historian Alan Brand says, “We see in the controversy over the opening of the economy that many questions about the so-called end are not about medical and public health issues, but about sociopolitical processes.”
“The end can be very, very disturbing … Who does an epidemic end for and who will say that?” Asked Dora Varga, a historian at the British University of Exeter.
Panol, smallpox and flu
The groin pest, caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis (which lives in fleas that live in rodents) and which is transmitted to humans not only through infected animals but also through respiratory droplets, had three main waves: at the time from Justinian. 6th century, in the Middle Ages (14th century), when it became known as the “Black Death” (killing almost half of the population of China where it came from, as well as a third of the population of Europe) and the pandemic in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 20th century
To this day, it is unclear how the plague ended. Some scientists claim that the cold weather killed the fleas’ hosts of the deadly bacteria (but that didn’t stop aerobic transmission), while others say it helped some biological changes in rodents. A third hypothesis is that the bacteria has become less lethal, and another possibility is that drastic human measures (for example, burning entire villages and neighborhoods in India) have slowed its spread. Remember this though, the plague is not completely gone and occasionally there are rare cases of human infection, which are effectively treated with antibiotics and do not become sources of transmission.
The other great “curse” of humanity, smallpox, which has appeared in epidemic waves in the last 3,000 years and has killed approximately 30% of the sick, has had a clear medical purpose. However, it is considered a special case, because there is now an effective vaccine that provides protection for life, while the virus that causes it (Variola minor) does not have a host animal, so if the disease disappears in humans, cannot find refuge in the animal kingdom. . Furthermore, its symptoms are so characteristic that the infection is obvious (without asymptomatic carriers) and therefore it is easy to quarantine all cases and trace contacts. The last human infected with smallpox in the world was a hospital cook, Somalia, who died of malaria in 2013.
The “Spanish flu” in the midst of World War I, which is estimated to have killed at least 50 million people worldwide, especially young and middle-aged people (as opposed to the elderly who “prefer” to the elderly) , had a social rather than a medical ending. The “great war” had just ended, people wanted to start again, a new era was beginning for humanity and everyone wanted to leave behind the nightmare of trenches and the flu. Other less severe flu pandemics occurred in the 20th century, worse than in 1968, with Hong Kong at a time when around a million people died worldwide, mostly over the age of 65. That virus continues to circulate as seasonal flu.
And the end of Covid-19?
What will happen to the Covid-19? Historians consider that it is possible that it ends socially, before it ends medically. Many people may have been overwhelmed by the restrictions, heralding the end of the pandemic, although the SARS-CoV-2 crown will continue to “boil” among the population. And the social end may come even before an effective vaccine or antiviral treatment is found.
“I think there is this social psychological problem of exhaustion and discomfort. We can get to a point where people just say,” Enough, I deserve to go back to my normal life, “said historian Naomi Rogers of Yale University.
And this is exactly what seems to be happening now, p. in some US states. USA that they are in a hurry to lift the restrictive measures, as if the settler had disappeared, thus defying the warnings of the public health authorities that such a thing is premature. But as the psychological dimension ties in with the economic devastation caused by the blockade, historians believe that more and more people are likely to be willing to say “enough so far.”
“There is a kind of conflict now,” Rogers said, as public health authorities and scientists are aiming for a medical purpose, but many citizens prefer a social purpose. According to Brad, determining the end of the current pandemic “will be a long and difficult process.”
SOURCE: AMPE
