The last few months we have been living in the age of the COVID-19 vivus pandemic. The lives of all of us have changed a lot during that time: we wear masks, wash and disinfect our hands much more often as well as the homes we live in. The way we work has changed Many people are anxious and depressed, it seems to us that we are a generation that survives the worst and that a pandemic will never pass. Is that so?
In order to be able to react in accordance with anything in life, we must first of all know what it is that we are struggling with, what we are surviving. A PANDEMIC is an epidemic of an infectious disease that spreads through the population of a large area, continent or the whole world. We can talk about a pandemic if it meets 3 conditions:
-a hitherto unknown disease has appeared in a population,
-pathogens infect people and cause severe consequences,
- pathogens spread rapidly and persist among humans.
Infectious diseases have not only sown mass death throughout history, but have also greatly influenced the course of history and human identity. Thus, in the 6th century, "Justinian's plague" prevented this Byzantine emperor from joining the remnants of the former Western Roman Empire, which disintegrated in 476. The apocalyptic atmosphere accompanied by infectious diseases facilitated the spread of Christianity, because ordinary people, in fear and inability to see the trouble that befell them, attributed a divine sign to them. Empires rose and disappeared under the onslaught of plague and similar diseases. Wars were waged or suspended due to diseases, such as the "Centennial" between France and England (1337-1453) and the boundaries established after pandemics. The fear of the apocalyptic end of the world - caused by infectious diseases - is much more intense than the new "Armageddon", as a consequence of nuclear war, or our individual fears of death. Albert Cami also wrote about the efforts of the human species to resist not only death, but also the idea of it in the famous novel "The Plague".
Infections appeared at the time of the original civilization, when people were constantly on the move, gathering fruits in order to survive. By switching to the agrarian type of life about 10,000 years ago, more permanent communities were created, which opened space for various epidemics. That is when malaria, tuberculosis, leprosy, flu, smallpox and other infectious diseases appear for the first time.
The oldest recorded pandemic occurred during the Peloponnesian War in the 5th century BC. The disease was transmitted from Libya, Ethiopia and Egypt through the walls of Athens, which was besieged by the Spartan army. According to the specialized site "History", two thirds of the population died.
Various other pandemics have been remembered, but history records the three largest, which, accidentally or not, occurred approximately 100 years apart.
1817: FIRST CHOLERA PANDEMIC The first of seven cholera pandemics broke out in Russia, where a million people died. The bacterium was transmitted through water contaminated with feces and food, transmitted to British soldiers who then brought it to India, where a million people died. Given the size of the British Empire and its activities, cholera spread to Spain, Africa, Indonesia, China, Japan, Italy, Germany and the United States, where another 150,000 people died. The cholera vaccine was found in 1885, but the pandemic appeared several more times.
1918: SPANISH FEVER The Spanish flu broke out at the end of the First World War and killed about 50 million people worldwide, according to some sources even 100 million - while half a billion or almost a third of the world's population was infected. That is a much larger death toll than in the first global war - in which 10 million people died
2020: Corona virus / COVID-19
The focus of the virus itself comes from the Far East, from China, but cases of coronavirus have been registered on six continents. The mortality rate is 3.4 percent, which is significantly less than when it comes to previous pandemics, but it is spreading much faster. At the same time, the percentage of deaths is 34 times higher than with seasonal flu. At the same time, panic is spreading drastically among people, while all security measures are easily understood and precautionary measures are not respected.
The only thing that can comfort us somewhat in this really awkward situation is the knowledge that this pandemic will pass. Let us recall something that was written on Easter 1827, during the cholera pandemic, by the great Russian poet Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin, and is called "Let's call to help common sense "
Allow me, dear brothers, sisters, fellow citizens and all compatriots, to congratulate you on the great spring holiday from quarantine! Everything will go and everything will pass, all worries and panics will go away, again the roads will become flat and the gardens will be full of flowers again. Let's call reason to help, Let's defeat the disease by the power of knowledge, And the days of a difficult exam let's survive as one family! We will become cleaner and wiser did not succumb to darkness and fear. Let us rise in spirit and become closer and better to each other! And let's be at the holiday table We all rejoice in Life again, And may the Most High on this day as well send a piece of luck to every home! A.S. Pushkin 1827
That's good, interesting