Chapter 2 - Pandemics: Unsurprising but Governments Unprepared?

Summary

Introduction

This chapter sets out to answer the following questions. Is the present pandemic an out-of-the-ordinary event or something that could have been expected, given past history, but for which we were not prepared? What are the basic causes of pandemics? How are these causes related to the way humans interact with nature and environment? These are addressed in Section 1. Section 2 of the chapter asks: what are the different ways societies have responded to the pandemic crisis? What factors explain why some are doing better than others? What lessons can be learned to prepare for the next pandemic?

With hindsight, a global pandemic was inevitable. History is peppered with pandemics including in recent times, and today’s globally connected world could hardly be better optimized to breed new outbreaks and allow them to spread. High population densities, intensive farming and deforestation all make the emergence of novel viruses and pathogens more likely; trade and modern travel make their transmission inevitable. What was not inevitable though was our collective response to the threat.

We begin with a brief tour of the history of pandemics from ancient to modern times, focusing on the latter and in particular on the present pandemic—the COVID-19 pandemic. We will look at influenza and coronavirus pandemics in turn, but we will also include a few pandemics that do not neatly fall under these headings and attempt to balance this loose categorization with a historical chronology.

Section 1: A Brief History Of Pandemics Historical Background: Plague Pandemics

There have been three major bacterial pandemics since the sixth century AD: the Justinian plague, the bubonic plague (or Black Death), and the third plague pandemic (we will also briefly look at the Manchurian plague). All are noteworthy for the devastation that ensued both in terms of loss of life and in the far-reaching socio-economic impacts they made.

Throughout the course of the first two pandemics, spanning both the Dark Ages and the Renaissance, a poor understanding of the cause of plague led to a persistent curtailment of control. In these periods the pathogenic agents or bacteria had yet to be discovered. People were unaware that rats were transmitting agents. The belief at that time was that miasmic bad air was to be blamed, sometimes associated with malevolent astrological signs (Watts 1997, pp. 8–15).