No matter where you are in the world, you know these two words: Pandemic and lockdown
We all know what they mean because we’ve experienced them. But more and more people are asking one question:
When will this pandemic be over????
Firstly, let’s have a look at the 3 major outbreaks of the Plague in history.
The first one is called The Plague of Justinian.
It wiped out nearly half the world’s population in the 6th century.
The second and most famous outbreak was started in China in the 1300ts. The disease wiped out up to one-third of the European population.
The last major outbreak of the Plague started in China in 1855 and once again spread across the world.
How did those pandemics ended?
Experts aren’t sure exactly.
Perhaps the Plague ran out of victims, or it could have mutated and become less deadly.
Each of these outbreaks eventually did end, but the disease wasn’t gone.
In fact, it’s still around today. The plague is spread among prairie dogs in the southwestern US, and from time to time it even makes its way to humans.
So how does a pandemic end?
According to medical historians, a pandemic has 2 types of endings – a medical ending and a social ending.
A medical ending happens when it’s impossible for the infection to find new victims.That can be when everyone is dead or strict social distancing measures are in place.
Or people are immune or have been vaccinated.
A social end to the pandemic doesn’t mean the disease is gone – it just means that people have learned to live with it. A pandemic can end socially when people stop fearing the disease, had enough of the restrictions, and want to go back to their daily life.
A great example of a social end to a pandemic is the Spanish Flu outbreak of 1918.
By the time World War 1 was over, people everywhere were sick of the war, death and misery.
they were willing to risk disease to return to “normal” life as soon as possible.
The virus eventually mutated into a less severe form of the flu, and medically the pandemic slowly disappeared, even though the disease definitely hadn’t gone away.
The fact is, pandemics don’t end medically or socially. Both need to happen but medical ending is actually nearly impossible.
Smallpox is one of the rare examples of medical endings. The disease terrorized people for almost 3000 years. But because symptoms were easy to recognize, people were quarantined earlier. Also, animals weren’t affected, which means that once humans were cured, the illness was defeated.
But coming back to our pandemic, COVID19 – when and how will this particular pandemic end?
The fact that the outbreak affects different areas differently, makes it difficult to say when the pandemic will be over.
At some point, the World Health Organization will declare the global pandemic emergency to be over, but some countries might still be fighting with it.
Medically, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to end soon. It will take some time to produce a vaccine, distribute it and vaccinate everybody.
Socially, though, it seems like we are seeing the end of the tunnel. People are getting frustrated with social distancing and quarantine measures.
The economic and social impacts scare people more than the disease itself.
Whatever happens, we will be hearing about COVID for a little longer. Take care of yourself, but do not live your life in fear. Try to enjoy it 🙂
