The End Of the Pandemics

The Covid 19 crisis certainly feels unprecedented, and in most ways it is. Never has the world faced a health crisis that has moved so quickly across continents, over whelming complex health care systems, and putting entire economies on hold. But this isn't the first pandemic the globe has faced, and it likely won't be the last. 

Historians of the medicine know that pandemics and epidemics are social phenomena. As a result, their ending happen in two ways. There is the medical conclusion of a pandemic, when disease incidence goes down and death rates plummet. But there is also the social end, when fear of the infection decreases and social restrictions ease. Crucially, you can have one without the other.

The only way to prevent the spread of a highly contagious virus is to isolate people from one another, something we must learn from the quick spread of other illnesses. 

The rates could stay the same, but people get sick and tired of restrictions. Or rates could go down, but people remain fearful - anxious about returning to normal life and unable to let go of some of the precautions we have been accustomed to. 

We also have to remember that Coronavirus is a global disease and that different places will have varying social and medical conclusions to their respective versions of the pandemic. Looking ahead to the end of the pandemic is not confined to one country, and as the vaccine rollout proceeds people across the world are turning their attention to celebration and relief. However, history tells us that the end of pandemics are rarely- if ever- neat, uncomplicated or even easy to date.

Whether bacterial, viral or parasitic, virtually every disease pathogen that has affected people over the last thousands of years is still with us, because it is nearly impossible to fully eradicate them. The only disease that can be eradicated through vaccination is smallpox. 

Today in the age of global air travel, climate change and ecological disturbances, we are constantly exposed to the threat of emerging infectious diseases while continuing to suffer from much older diseases that remain alive and well.  

The fight against coronavirus will not be won until every country in the world can control the disease. But not every country has the same ability to protect people. Soon Governments will need to restart the global economy which will require international cooperation in several key areas. The first crucial element of Covid 19 exit strategy is massive testing ( for both immunity and infection) so that healthy people can return to work and those who are infected can get proper treatment. For this, countries will need adequate supplies of testing kits and protective equipment, as well as ventilators and access to emerging treatments.

The Covid 19 pandemic poses an unprecedented to both public health and the global economy. Only by ditching nationalist rhetoric and policies, and embracing stronger international cooperation, can governments protect the people they claim to represent.  

It will end like a fizzle instead of a bang. And even with the best therapies and vaccines in the world, this virus is almost certainly going to be with us forever, even after the pandemic has passed.

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