How We Tried To Contain Major Pandemics Throughout Recorded History

By | April 8, 2020

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A nurse checking on a patient at the Walter Reed Hospital Flu Ward during the influenza pandemic, Washington, D.C., circa 1918. (Harris & Ewing/Underwood Archives/Getty Images)

In the last month or so, health officials have touted self-isolation as the key to flattening the curve and stopping the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19. According to the government's warnings, anyone who has come in contact with the virus or recently traveled should be quarantined for at least two weeks, while everyone else should avoid close contact with anyone else. These measures are harsh and inconvenient, but history shows us they are nothing new. Let's look at the efforts to contain some of history's most deadly pandemics. 

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The Black Death killed as much as half the European population. (historytoday.com)

The Black Death

Records of the time tell us that a ship full of people sick with the bubonic plague arrived in Southampton, England in October 1348. Within a month, the disease had spread to London, and by December, Londoners were dropping dead at a rate of about 200 per day. The Black Death was just getting started: In the end, between one-third and one-half of the population of Europe was dead from the highly infectious disease.