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Several pandemics have ravaged our planet before COVID-19. While medical and healthcare initiatives have succeeded in containing the spread of some diseases in the twentieth century, some of the earliest pandemics in history have wiped out parts of the human population. Throughout history, pandemics have influenced in reshaping societies and politics in profound ways.
Together with the death of millions of people, pandemics in history have brought down empires and governments, altered the course of wars, and have led to social upheavals. The novel coronavirus has swept the globe in a few months.
How will it change our societies and how will it end? What were the outcomes of some of the worst pandemics in history?
Social and Medical Endings
Pandemics have two types of endings according to historians— the medical and the social. The medical ending happens when the number of active cases and the death rate plummets. The social ending happens when the fear about the disease subsides.
According to Dr. Jeremy Greene, a historian of medicine, when people often ask, “When will this end?” they mean the social ending of the pandemic. It means an end can occur when people learn to live with the disease and grow tired of the panic mode, and not because a disease has been eradicated. This explains why sociopolitical factors are considered in debates about opening international borders and the world economy.
Here’s a look at the outcome of some of the worst pandemics in history—how they ended and how they remade the world.
Justinian Plague (541 - 542 AD)
The Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire) was at the pinnacle of its power when this plague broke out in Egypt and spread to Constantinople (modern Istanbul). The Justinian plague, named after the then Byzantine emperor Justinian, is one of the deadliest pandemics recorded in history. It is estimated that about 25 to 100 million lives were lost during its outbreak in the sixth century.
Waves of this deadly plague resurfaced several times until it finally disappeared in 750 AD. Procopius, the principal Byzantine historian of the sixth century, wrote that the plague was “a pestilence by which the whole human race was near to be annihilated”.
The plague substantially weakened the economy and military of the empire which ruled over vast territories of the Roman Mediterranean coast. By the time plague disappeared, their provinces came under several attacks which led to the loss of its territories in Europe to the Germanic-speaking Franks while parts of the empire in Egypt and Syria were lost to the Arabs.
Black Death (1347-1352)
With an astonishing death toll of over 200 million, the bubonic plague or The Black Death, which hit Europe in 1347, is considered the greatest catastrophe ever. The plague swept parts of China, India, Syria, and Egypt in the early 1340s, before finally arriving in Europe by 1347.
It wiped out 50 percent of the world population according to various estimates. The idea of quarantine and its practice was first introduced in Europe during the outbreak of this plague of Black Death.
People then had no scientific understanding of the disease, but they realized it had something to do with proximity, making them impose compulsory isolation for inbound sailors. The port of Ragusa in Italy, which was then controlled by Venetians, resolved to keep newly arrived sailors in isolation on their ships for 30 days until they could prove they were not infected.
This became known as ‘Trentino’ according to Venetian law. This forced isolation was increased to 40 days and came to be known as ‘Quarantino.’ ‘Yersinia pestis’ a bacteria which lives on fleas found on rats, was the cause of this plague. It is not clear how this pandemic came to an end.
Some hypothesis point out that the bacterium evolved to be less deadly, while some argue that cold weather killed the disease-carrying fleas. But that would not have interrupted it from being transmitted via the respiratory route, as the Black Death also can be transmitted through respiratory droplets, like COVID-19.
The plague never really went away and it has resurfaced several times in the past. It can now be successfully treated with antibiotics, but any report of an active case still has the potential to stir up fear in people’s minds.
New World Smallpox (1520-1980)
Caused by one of two virus variants, variola major and variola minor, smallpox is estimated to have claimed 25 to 55 million lives worldwide. Smallpox was a persistent threat to Europe, Asia, and Arabia for centuries, killing 30 percent of the people it infected and leaving the survivors with pit-like scars. Smallpox is a pandemic that actually achieved a medical ending.
It was one of the first virus epidemics to be ended by a vaccine. Edward Jenner, a British doctor discovered that milkmaids infected with a milder virus called cowpox were immune to smallpox. In the late 18th century, he inoculated his gardener’s 9-year-old son with cowpox and later exposed the boy to the smallpox virus with no ill effect, proving his discovery.
It was not until 1980, more than two centuries after the vaccine was discovered, when the World Health Organization declared smallpox to be completely eradicated from the face of the earth. The smallpox virus had no animal host, so total elimination was achieved by eliminating the disease in humans. Unlike present-day COVID-19, its symptoms were so unusual, making the infection obvious. This allowed for effective contact tracing and implementing quarantine measures.
The Spanish Flu (1918-1920)
The Spanish flu was first recorded in Europe during the last phase of the First World War, and it soon spread into America and Asia. With estimates of over 50 million deaths worldwide and as many as 500 million people infected, the Spanish flu is undoubtedly the deadliest pandemic of the last century.
India was one of the worst-hit by this pandemic which came in two waves. It took away the lives of about 18 million people in India, which was roughly 6 percent of the Indian population during the outbreak. Even though it’s often called the Spanish flu. It did not originate in Spain, but they were the only nation being honest about the toll the pandemic took on them.
This resulted in the flu being identified in their name throughout the world. The Spanish Flu outbreak impacted the First World War and it was one of the reasons for Germany’s defeat according to German General Erich Ludendorff. He mentions this in his memoir— My War Memories, 1914-1918.
Even though nations on both sides of the war were hit by the flu, the outbreak derailed the offensives of Germans and Austrians who were badly affected. The war ended with the truce that was signed on November 11, 1918, while the flu continued to ravage parts of the world for many more months until it finally subsided. The flu eventually evolved into a more benign variant that comes around every year.
Covid-19, How Will It End?
It’s too early to predict how the novel coronavirus outbreak would end. One possibility is that the COVID-19 pandemic may end socially before it ends medically. While scientists all over the world are busy developing a vaccine or effective treatment for this pandemic, the global population may grow tired of the current restrictions imposed on their lives that they will declare the pandemic to have ended.
It’s more of a social-psychological issue as people would want to return to their regular lives. It’s already happening as governments throughout the world have started lifting their restrictions in a phased manner while public health officials are working towards a medical ending of the pandemic. Defining the end of this current epidemic will be a long and difficult process as there seems to be no sudden victory in eradicating it.
Written by - Rahul Prem
Edited by - Nidhi Verma
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