As the world descends into the COVID-19 outbreak, there are many uncertainties for everyone on how or when the pandemic will be resolved and life will return to normalcy. While no one truly has the answers to these questions yet, looking back on pandemics in history can provide some information on what will happen in this case. 

While this is a completely new experience for humans worldwide, humanity, from the beginning of our existence, is no stranger to detrimental disease outbreaks. 

One of the most famous events in history was the Bubonic Plague, which decimated Europe and Asia’s population in the mid 1300’s, killing around 50 million people. This outbreak occurred before vaccines were invented, so people resorted to different ways of ending it for good, since it kept re-appearing throughout Europe for a century. This led to the first evidence of quarantining, or isolating sick or possibly sick people to slow the spread. At the time when trade by seas became common, most sailors coming back to Europe were quarantined for around 30-40 days on their ships, so as to not spread the disease from other places. The English government reportedly even imposed laws to quarantine people. 

While the effects of such a deadly disease without a vaccine or the advanced medical treatments that we have today were devastating, their technique of quarantine was in fact successful in stopping the spread and nearly eradicating the disease. In the modern era, isolating contagious patients has become a common practice, but now during the coronavirus outbreak, quarantining non-sick people is being stressed to “flatten the curve,” a practice that can in part be traced back to the Black Plague. 

Additionally, mass graves for deceased patients became common, which may be gruesome and can seem profoundly insensitive, yet the practice is similar to some recently found in Iran, used for deceased coronavirus patients. 

A couple hundred years after the Black Plague, smallpox began to destroy Europe, Asia, and Africa in the 15th century, before spreading to the New World, where it killed around 90-95% of the indigenous population. While a cure was never found, a vaccination eventually destroyed the disease, but not after hundreds of millions of people were killed. This was the first virus to be nearly eradicated by a vaccination, discovered in the late 1700s.

Since then, each new virus that appears in the world sparks a scientific race to develop a vaccination, and the coronavirus is no different. Several developments have already begun, but no vaccine has emerged yet, and COVID-19 will likely be around a year until a vaccine becomes readily available to the public. Even with many qualified medical professionals dedicating their efforts to finding a vaccine, approval and availability will take months, or even years. In the case of smallpox, after a vaccine was introduced, it took another 200 years for the virus to be eradicated, taking another 300 million lives in the 20th century alone. 

The first major outbreak of the H1N1 virus occurred in 1918 and is commonly referred to as the Spanish Flu. It caused around 50-100 million deaths worldwide, making it the most severe pandemic and recent history, which is why it is used as a frequent comparison to the current coronavirus pandemic. There was no vaccine at the time, so methods used to stop the spread included isolation, quarantine, personal hygiene, the use of disinfectants, and limiting public gatherings, all of which are being used currently. One of the key takes-aways from the Spanish Flu pandemic is the role of the government in decreasing the impact. Many historians speculate that governments around the world lied to the people about the true impact of the disease. They downplayed the effects it would have, hid shocking statistics, and referred to it as a common flu. Sound familiar? 

It seems that by now the general public has the facts about the fatality rate, the number of cases, and the true nature of the threat that coronavirus poses.  But when the virus was just beginning to spread, President Trump referred to it as the flu and said the mortality rate is much lower than what health officials have stated, among other mischaracterizations. Whether Trump was misinformed, ignorant about the virus, or intentionally lying, when governments lie about pandemics it only causes more panic, as history attests. 

While it was not a large scale outbreak, the Swine Flu is worth mentioning due to its recency. This was another outbreak of the H1N1 virus, in 2009 and only had around a .02% death rate in the U.S., compared to about 1.2% (and increasing) fatality rate from the coronavirus in the U.S. When this virus first appeared, it ignited panic across the country. The outbreak slowed quickly and ended up being much less of a worry than people originally epxected. There may be lessons to be learned from this minor outbreak nevertheless — perhaps one of the reasons the epidemic was so small was due to early precautions taken to stop the spread. 

Again, while the new coronavirus is completely new to us and entails many unknowns, looking at pandemics across history may give us some insight. Like all outbreaks in the past, COVID-19 will come to an end. It could be 100 years, or a couple months, but eventually it will end. Modern medicine has come a long way and will find a vaccine for this disease. Even though we cannot control the speed of the process, we can use protective measure that have been proven successful in the past — quarantine, hygiene, disinfectants, and most importantly, social distancing.