Graham Mooney, historiador m\u00e9dico de la Universidad Johns Hopkins, le dijo a Futurism que el brote de coronavirus en curso tiene una serie de sorprendentes similitudes con brotes pasados como la viruela y el \u00e9bola, y especialmente con la pandemia de gripe espa\u00f1ola que mat\u00f3 a decenas de millones en todo el mundo durante a\u00f1os. entre 1918 y 1922. “La gran pregunta es si es apropiado que el estado pueda decirle a la gente que tienes que ir al hospital, tienes que mantenerte alejado de la escuela, tienes que mantener tu negocio cerrado”, dijo Mooney.<\/p>\n
When a mysterious new coronavirus started to spread out of Wuhan, China, last year, fear began to grow that it would turn into a new global pandemic.<\/p>\n
Now, months after reports of an outbreak began, the SARS-CoV-2<\/a> coronavirus has infected nearly 100,000 and killed just over 3,300 people around the world \u2014 a rapid spread in which some historians see parallels to deadly historical diseases.<\/p>\n Graham Mooney, a medical historian at Johns Hopkins University, told Futurism that the ongoing coronavirus outbreak bears a number of striking similarities to past outbreaks like Smallpox and Ebola \u2014 and especially to the Spanish flu pandemic that killed tens of millions around the world during the years between 1918 and 1922.<\/p>\n We\u2019re about three months into the coronavirus outbreak, whereas the real devastation of the 1918 flu began about six to seven months in, after the virus started to cause deadly, rapidly-developing bacterial infections and pneumonia deep in patients\u2019 lungs<\/a>.<\/p>\n And while there are major obvious differences, one disturbing takeaway is that political leaders \u2014 and to a lesser extent the communities they govern \u2014 are making the same mistakes\u00a0they did in the past.<\/p>\n \u201cI think what that means,\u201d Mooney said, \u201cis public health as an endeavor, as a professional career, hasn\u2019t quite gotten it right yet when it comes to convincing those in power to make the right decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n Fighting An Invisible Enemy<\/strong><\/p>\n When the Spanish flu hit, scientists barely knew what viruses were. The first microscope capable of even seeing them wasn\u2019t built until the 930s<\/a>, and doctors hadn\u2019t yet developed vaccines or any sort of antiviral or antibacterial medications.<\/p>\n In other words, doctors had no effective treatment against the 1918 flu. Physicians threw everything they had at it: bloodletting, oxygen, and rudimentary vaccines that didn\u2019t work, all to no avail.<\/p>\n On top of that, the pandemic was drastically exacerbated by World War I. Early reports of the 1918 flu came from training camps and barracks where it spread rapidly among soldiers who were limited in both personal space and an understanding of disease control \u2014 and who also got shipped out to Europe.<\/p>\n On March 11, 1918, an Army private in Kansas complained about flu-like symptoms<\/a>. By that afternoon, there were over 100 other sick soldiers. Within five weeks<\/a>, that number increased ten-fold and 47 soldiers had died.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, civilian communities hit by the flu were left without doctors or healthcare professionals, as many of those resources had been sucked into the war effort.<\/p>\n But despite the similarities, COVID-19 is following a very different trajectory than the Spanish flu; there\u2019s no global war raging, but there are fast and easier ways for a higher volume of people to travel quickly across the globe, spreading the virus far from where it began.<\/p>\n Parallel Treatments<\/strong><\/p>\n Our understanding of microbiology and pharmacology has progressed substantially over the last hundred years. Quarantines, though, are as effective as ever. \u201cThere are some obvious differences, but\u2026 really the parallels are in non-pharmaceuticals interventions that can take place, like mandatory quarantine of the diseases so public health officials know where they are and who\u2019s got them,\u201d Mooney said.<\/p>\n Some of Mooney\u2019s research<\/a> has focused on managing the balance between individual liberty and the needs of society during a public health emergency. For instance, he said that more governments are likely to pursue \u201coversteps and measures such as controlling or at least managing or trying to prevent public gatherings as well. You see some of that happening now in some countries where they\u2019re beginning to think about suspending public gathering.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut mostly the interventions are individual quarantines,<\/strong> closure of schools,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Historically, isolation and quarantine have worked best if enacted early enough<\/a>. Limiting exposure to disease is still among the best ways to limit its spread. The challenge was \u2014 and remains \u2014 the ability to pinpoint infection quickly, and isolate the patient before they spread it to others.<\/p>\n For instance, China blocked transportation in and out of the first cities to be hit by the coronavirus, effectively quarantining the disease\u2019s epicenter<\/a> from the rest of the world. The U.S. quarantined nearly 200 citizens<\/a> who tried to flee China, urging thousands of others to isolate themselves on top of that.<\/p>\n \u201cThe big question is whether it\u2019s appropriate for the state to be able to tell people you\u2019ve got to go to the hospital, you\u2019ve got to stay away from school, you\u2019ve got to keep your business closed,\u201d Mooney said.<\/p>\n Appropriate or not, the state has historically wielded that power in the face of deadly outbreaks.<\/p>\n Mooney cited legislation that, in the face of the Spanish flu, let authorities show up and cart people off to isolation hospitals \u2014 a policy that he said hit racial minorities, the poor, and anyone else living in overcrowded areas the hardest.<\/p>\n Controlling Narratives<\/strong><\/p>\n But the most disturbing parallel between today\u2019s outbreak and those of yesteryear is how governments have controlled the flow of information.<\/p>\n Because the Spanish flu coincided with World War I, many of the countries first affected by it had heightened control over their media due to the war effort. In fact, the only reason the pandemic is called the Spanish flu is because Spain, a neutral country, allowed its newspapers to report about the disease.<\/p>\n On top of that, U.S.\u2019s Sedition Act of 1918 made it illegal to \u201cwillfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of the Government of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n The government relied heavily on the Sedition Act to stamp out news about the pandemic lest it embarrass the state or detract from the war effort, according to Smithsonian Magazine<\/em><\/a>. The result was a media ecosystem full of inaccurate information and propaganda telling the public not to worry, all while cities like Philadelphia<\/a> turned into ghost towns and entire communities were wiped out.<\/p>\n This time around, China responded to early reports of an emerging coronavirus outbreak by punishing whistleblowers<\/a> and censoring social media. As a result, efforts to contain the outbreak failed, in part because people didn\u2019t get the information or warnings they needed. For instance, when a Wuhan-based doctor was one of the first to warn of an outbreak \u2014 which he mistook at the time for a resurgence of SARS \u2014 he was arrested and silenced<\/a> by the government over \u201cspreading rumors.\u201d He later contracted the virus and died from it. Now, having learned seemingly nothing from China\u2019s errors, U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly downplayed, and spread false information about,<\/strong> the outbreak<\/a>. He\u2019s called it a political conspiracy to make him look bad, and on Wednesday dismissed World Health Organization reports<\/a> and common-sense practices like staying home from work when sick.<\/p>\n \u201cI think knowledge is power,\u201d Mooney said. \u201cPeople can\u2019t take appropriate action if they don\u2019t have full information. If you\u2019re a citizen who wants to voluntarily isolate, if you\u2019re a citizen who wants to take other kinds of precautionary measures like social distancing, it helps to have information in hand.\u201d<\/p>\n Lessons Ignored<\/strong><\/p>\n Ultimately, the response of both the American and Chinese governments shows a disturbing inability to learn<\/a> from both the scientific and political lessons of the past.<\/p>\n Mooney points out that the way authorities have controlled the narrative<\/a> around the outbreak reveals that their priorities are backwards. Instead of putting the concern for human life and citizens\u2019 welfare first, leaders like Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping have focused more on national pride.<\/p>\n \u201cThe argument here should be that human life has a value above a government\u2019s concern for outside attitudes about its ability to control an epidemic,\u201d said Mooney. \u201cYou want reliable information, you want evidence-based information, and you want information that comes from sources you can trust.\u201d<\/p>\n People need transparency, he continued, so that they can make informed decisions about travel, sending kids to school, and going about daily life. Without that guidance, there\u2019s no way to organize an effective response on the individual or community level.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the rush to create a vaccine<\/a> for a new outbreak rather than invest in public health shows that the leaders remain reactive rather than proactive.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s interesting how these kinds of things repeat themselves, in the sense that every time something like this happens, the focus is the quick fix: getting a vaccine out, setting up emergency measures,\u201d Mooney said. \u201cThese are only ever going to be temporary until the next thing comes along.\u201d<\/p>\n A vaccine won\u2019t be ready for at least a year, by some estimates \u2014 and when another epidemic rolls around we\u2019ll be back at square one. Meanwhile, healthcare remains prohibitively expensive to many in the U.S. and public health measures are a low political priority<\/a> for the Trump administration.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a question of how important is public health compared to investing in the economy, investing in education \u2014 it\u2019s a question of priorities,\u201d said Mooney. \u201cIt\u2019s easy to put it in a drawer and forget about it until the next pandemic comes along, whereas you could argue that public health is something that needs to be constantly invested in, the eye never be taken off the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n And about those historical laws that let officials show up and take people into quarantine? Mooney says that by and large, the rich went unaffected. Wealthy people with large homes were more or less left to their own devices \u2014 their kids weren\u2019t taken to isolation hospitals because it was assumed they had the space and resources to putz around at home in self-imposed isolation instead.<\/p>\n For those today who are exposed, the\u00a0U.S. government won\u2019t even guarantee that a vaccine for COVID-19 will be affordable<\/a>, let alone free \u2014 suggesting many people in the most at-risk populations won\u2019t be able to access it.<\/p>\n Additionally, Mooney said data shows that people respond according to personal fear: When a vaccine was available for smallpox, people didn\u2019t decide to use it until they were personally endangered, potentially putting their entire community at risk.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we really need is affordable healthcare and investment in primary care so the resources are already there on the ground,\u201d said Mooney. \u201cThat\u2019s to help people so people have got access to resources that enable them to manage themselves during an epidemic.\u201d<\/p>\n
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