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During the past hundred years, the world has uniquely spared devastating pandemics. This is an important explanation for the panic that COVID-19 brought with it, writes historian Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist in a new book.
Since covid-19 began to spread around the world, the eruption has often been said to be a sign that we are living in a new “pandemic era,” as the title says in a current book by science journalist Debora McKenzie. . Often mentioned is the idea that epidemics have become more common, as a result of the dark sides of the globalized world: the climate crisis, rapid population growth, and faster global transportation.
From a historical perspective however, this is a hasty conclusion, as historian Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist recalls in the book “Corona – a historical perspective on the pandemic of our time”. Rather, what is most characteristic of the modern world is that for a long time, since the outbreak of the so-called Spanish flu in 1918, we have uniquely been spared severe pandemics.
This may change, because there are many indications that more diseases now cross the border between other animals and humans, although it is difficult to say for sure, simply because there is no comparable data further back in time.
In fact, this is a disease that had hardly been noticed in Sweden two or three hundred years ago.
What we do know, however, is that modern man has not had to take into account the threat of devastating plagues in the way that he always had to. Until well into the 20th century, these epidemics were constantly present. Suffice it to mention diseases such as the plague, smallpox and cholera, which over the centuries have claimed enormous numbers of deaths. In that perspective, covid-19 is very mild. In fact, this is a disease that had hardly been noticed in Sweden two or three hundred years ago; back then there were so many other much worse infections to worry about.
This is not to say that covid-19 is harmless because, of course, the disease is not. And it probably causes many tragic deaths: At the time of writing, more than 1.5 million people have died, which means that covid-19 is approaching the severity of so-called Asians, the flu that since 1957 it took the lives of nearly five million people.
Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist Points It is that the measures that the world as a whole has faced with this disease have been exaggerated, and more marked by panic than by rational considerations. Or, as he puts it, “one of the least deadly pandemics in history” has been shown to trigger “the most powerful and, in many ways, most damaging reactions in history.”
This, in turn, is due, according to Charpentier Ljungqvist, to the very fact that modern man has not faced devastating plagues for a long time. It’s also part of the story, he writes, that today we hope that healthcare and society at large can protect us from disease in ways that would have been strange in the past.
Syracuse Herald listing in October 1918. A military encampment on the outskirts of town was the reason the flu hit the town so hard.
Photo: Alamy
Another important reason for the strong reactions is the intense global media climate: newspapers, television and social networks that lift the spirits to the point that the covid-19 finally appears as a serious threat to modern society as such. He argues particularly eloquently that the strict closures have had devastating consequences for the world’s most vulnerable, with millions threatened with hunger as a result.
A weakness in your reasoning however, the viewpoint of the vaccine’s ability to slow the spread of the disease applies. Charpentier Ljungqvist assumes that vaccines will not have time to make a significant difference in the number of people affected by the disease from a global perspective, a conclusion that is apparently incorrect.
Regardless, there is no question that more pandemics will follow in the future. It is also very likely that there are some that are much worse than covid-19. Now that, thanks to vaccines that have been developed faster than ever, we can begin to see the end of the ravages of this plague, it is important not to forget what we have learned over the past year, so that we are better prepared next time. . .
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