When will the pandemic end? All these months in, with over globally, you may be wondering, with increasing exasperation, how long this will continue?
Since the beginning of the pandemic, epidemiologists and public health specialists have to forecast the future in an effort to curb the coronvirus鈥檚 spread. But infectious disease modeling is tricky. Epidemiologists warn that “,鈥 and even sophisticated versions, like those that or , can鈥檛 necessarily reveal when the pandemic will end or .
As a , I suggest that instead of looking forward for clues, you can look back to see what brought past outbreaks to a close 鈥 or didn鈥檛.
Where We Are Now In The Course Of The Pandemic
In the early days of the pandemic, many people hoped the coronavirus would simply fade away. Some argued that it would . Others claimed that would kick in once enough people had been infected. But none of that has happened.
A combination of public health efforts to contain and mitigate the pandemic 鈥 from rigorous testing and contact tracing to social distancing and wearing masks 鈥 . Given that the virus has , though, such measures alone can鈥檛 bring the pandemic to an end. The hope now is vaccines, which were developed at unprecedented speed.
Yet experts tell us that even with successful vaccines and effective treatment, . Even if the pandemic is curbed in one part of the world, it will likely continue in other places, causing infections elsewhere. And even if it is no longer an immediate pandemic-level threat, the coronavirus will likely become endemic 鈥 meaning slow, sustained transmission will persist. The coronavirus will continue to cause smaller outbreaks, much like seasonal flu.
The history of pandemics is full of such frustrating examples.
Once They Emerge, Diseases Rarely Leave
Whether bacterial, viral or parasitic, virtually every disease pathogen that has affected people over the last several thousand years is still with us, because it is nearly impossible to fully eradicate them.
The only disease that has been . led by the World Health Organization in the 1960s and 1970s were successful, and in 1980, smallpox was declared the first 鈥 and still, the only 鈥 human disease to be fully eradicated.
So success stories like smallpox are exceptional. It is rather the rule that diseases come to stay.
Today, in an age of global air travel, climate change and ecological disturbances, we are constantly exposed to the threat of emerging infectious diseases while continuing to suffer from much older diseases that remain alive and well.
Take, for example, pathogens like . Transmitted via parasite, it鈥檚 almost as old as humanity and still exacts a heavy disease burden today: There were about worldwide in 2018. Since 1955, global programs to eradicate malaria, assisted by the use of DDT and chloroquine, brought some success, but the disease is .
Similarly, diseases such as , and have been with us for several millennia. And despite all efforts, .
Add to this mix relatively younger pathogens, such as and , along with and including , and , and the overall epidemiological picture becomes clear. Research on the finds that annual mortality caused by infectious diseases 鈥 most of which occurs in the developing world 鈥 is nearly one-third of all deaths globally.
Today, in an age of global air travel, climate change and ecological disturbances, we are constantly exposed to the threat of while continuing to suffer from much older diseases that remain alive and well.
Once added to the repertoire of pathogens that affect human societies, most infectious diseases are here to stay.
Plague Caused Past Pandemics 鈥 And Still Pops Up
Even infections that now have effective vaccines and treatments continue to take lives. Perhaps no disease can help illustrate this point better than infectious disease in human history. Its name continues to be synonymous with horror even today.
Yet was far from being an isolated outburst. Plague returned every decade or even more frequently, each time hitting already weakened societies and taking its toll during . Even before the of the 19th century, each outbreak gradually died down over the course of months and sometimes years as a result of changes in temperature, humidity and the availability of hosts, vectors and a sufficient number of susceptible individuals. is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. There have been countless local outbreaks and at least three documented plague pandemics over the last 5,000 years, killing hundreds of millions of people. The most notorious of all pandemics was of the mid-14th century.
Some societies recovered relatively quickly from their losses caused by the Black Death. Others never did. For example, medieval from the lingering effects of the pandemic, which particularly devastated its agricultural sector. The cumulative effects of declining populations became impossible to recoup. It led to the gradual decline of the Mamluk Sultanate and its conquest by the Ottomans within less than two centuries.
That very same state-wrecking plague bacterium remains with us , a reminder of the very long persistence and resilience of pathogens.
Hopefully COVID-19 will not persist for millennia. But even with successful vaccines, no one is safe. Politics here are crucial: When vaccination programs are weakened, infections can come roaring back. Just look at and , which resurge as soon as vaccination efforts falter.
Given such historical and contemporary precedents, humanity can only hope that the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 will prove to be a tractable and eradicable pathogen. But the history of pandemics teaches us to expect otherwise.
This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the .
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