Writing the History of Pandemics in the Age of COVID-19

Since early 2020, pundits and commentators have scrutinized the history of past pandemics for answers to a series of questions shaped by COVID-19: what strategies have worked in the past to stem the spread of contagion? How long do epidemics typically last? Are vaccines an effective "magic bullet " against infectious diseases? The coronavirus crisis spawned comparisons to diseases as epidemiologically diverse as influenza, the Black Death, cholera, HIV/AIDS, and polio, as people excavated the records of past pandemics to try to make sense of the worst public-health disaster for over a century.(1) Policy proscriptions emerged quickly from these historical analogies. Many public-health experts pointed to the trajectories of epidemics like the 1918-19 influenza outbreak and SARS to convey the gravity of what would happen if political leaders did not quickly and decisively issue stay-at-home-orders, close schools, and mandate social distancing.(2)