3 Lessons COVID-19 is teaching us about the future
Does history repeat itself? Or maybe it can't? Contrary to popular wisdom, the right answers may be yes . . . and yes.
Just because history shows us most things don't simply happen over and over again doesn't mean we can't learn from history about what the future may have in store for us.
Given all the pandemics during the last 100 years, it seems far too easy for us to forget about history, and too hard for us to take seriously what history tells us.
There is a cartoon that shows two plainly dressed people sitting in comfortable chairs in a booklined room. The older bearded man on the left is being quoted as saying to a rather googly-eyed younger man on the right these memorable words. "Those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it. Yet those who do study history are doomed to stand by helplessly while everyone else repeats it."
This is humor at the edge of reality. It's only funny if what the older man is saying is true. History does repeat itself. This quip is merely silly if this isn't possible, and certainly there are a lot of people who would say history is always coming up with something new and often unexpected. Sure today may be a lot like yesterday, but you never know what can happen, right? Something really good or very bad may come along and tip the whole applecart called life in a whole new direction.
So what's the answer? Does history repeat itself? Or doesn't it? Or maybe the correct answer to both is yes?
Does history repeat itself?
The current COVID-19 pandemic is not the first such global threat, and surely it will not be the last. During the 20th century alone, there were three pandemics starting in the years 1918, 1957, and 1968 that had dramatic impact on global health and economics. There was another in 2009-2010.
The influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 caused by an H1N1 virus with genes thought to be of avian origin was the most severe pandemic in recent history. More people died during this pandemic than all those, both civilian and military, who perished during the First Word War. It is estimated that one-third of the world’s population back then, about 500 million people, became infected with this virus. Globally the number of deaths was at least 50 million people. About 675,000 of these deaths were in the United States.
Nobody is sure why this virus was so virulent. According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention):
With no vaccine to protect against influenza infection and no antibiotics to treat secondary bacterial infections that can be associated with influenza infections, control efforts worldwide were limited to non-pharmaceutical interventions such as isolation, quarantine, good personal hygiene, use of disinfectants, and limitations of public gatherings, which were applied unevenly.
What are we to make of the 1918-1919 pandemic and the three others over the years before COVID-19? At least one thing seems certain. History does at times repeat itself.
Lesson 1
The four pandemics over the course of the century before COVID-19 were not mirror images of one another. Who was most likely to become infected, how many people died, what were the risks of dying, and so forth all varied. For instance, during the outbreak that began in 1918 mortality was high in those under five years of age, adults between 20-40 years old, and elderly people over 65 years of age. A unique feature of this notorious pandemic was the high death rate among those who would otherwise be called healthy people, including those in the 20-40 year age group. In contrast, mortality during the current COVID-19 pandemic is highest among those who are over 65 and those of any age who have serious underlying medical conditions.
So what's the first lesson we can draw from these pandemics? Things can happen over again that are mostly or entirely beyond our control.
Lesson 2
What I find remarkable about the history of pandemics during the past 100 years or so is that how we have responded to these deadly outbreaks has also been more predictable than conventional wisdom would have us believe.
Despite what you might think would be obvious — that wearing facemasks, taking precautions, and being careful how you interact with those around you are all the better part of wisdom — not everyone has wanted to go along with such vigilance and restraint. As Christine Hauser reported in The New York Times last year:
More than a century ago, as the 1918 influenza pandemic raged in the United States, masks of gauze and cheesecloth became the facial front lines in the battle against the virus. But as they have now, the masks also stoked political division. Then, as now, medical authorities urged the wearing of masks to help slow the spread of disease. And then, as now, some people resisted.
Here, therefore, is another lesson COVID-19 is teaching us. Perhaps in name of "freedom & liberty," or just because of an overwhelming sense of self-importance, getting all of us to agree on anything — say, the merits of good health & longevity for all — can be an uphill battle even for that intelligent and strongly social species called Homo sapiens.
Lesson 3
Although it is not clear when their webpages on the Internet about pandemics were written (it was before the end of 2019), in what you find there the CDC does not shy away from asking "whether a high severity pandemic on the scale of 1918 could occur in modern times. Many experts think so."
Their pandemics website then goes on to make the fateful observation that while "significant progress has been made since 1918, gaps remain, and a severe pandemic could still be devastating to populations globally."
Regardless of where you see yourself on the political spectrum from right to left or vice versa, it would be hard to deny that the world wasn't prepared for COVID-19 despite all that history can tell us about such devastating events. The popular explanation would be to label not taking what the past can teach us as "denialism." Maybe so in some cases, but this is putting a political spin on something that is more alarming.
The third lesson taught by COVID-19 is not just about denialism. It is a lesson that worries me about the future. Given the realities of the pandemics during the past 100 years, it is obviously altogether too easy for us to forget about history, and very hard for us to take it seriously.