Pandemics Worse Than The Coronavirus

[Music] turn off that TV Brainard we can tell you what they're reporting on today and what they're reporting on tomorrow actually you probably already know the media is reporting this affair as if it's the worst pandemic when in fact it's not yeah that's right there have been plenty of pandemics worse than the corona virus which is believe it or not good news so stop trying to learn the renegade and equip yourself with knowledge of the history of diseases instead it'll make you far more interesting over your next FaceTime party but before we get into it let's start out with the basics so what is a pandemic to understand this we need to break down a bunch of terminology that gets clumped up into one another especially in this time of information overload an epidemic is a disease that affects a large number of people within a community population or region the difference between an epidemic and a pandemic is that a pandemic holds a passport when the World Health Organization recently announced that the corona virus is a pandemic that meant that it had spread over multiple countries and continents all pandemics begin as an endemic which is an infectious disease that belongs to a particular people or country an example of this is malaria which is an endemic in large parts of Africa and some parts of South America if an endemic increases numbers in a short period of time then experts would consider it an outbreak if the situation is not properly controlled then it becomes an epidemic so here we are discussing all the intricate differences between the emic words they're subtle and yet very important distinctions just so we can all understand how serious the situation is but you knew that you were currently in a pandemic but did you know it wasn't the first time in history we've encountered a wanderlust travel loving virus as it stands there are about 2.3 million cases worldwide the World Health Organization estimates that about seven percent of the total cases have been fatal but so far it's nothing compared to some of history's worst outbreaks take the 20th century Spanish flu which is considered the deadliest pandemic in history in 1918 a strain of influenza infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide that's about 1/3 of the planet's population it was first observed in Europe the United States and parts of Asia before swiftly spreading across the world at the time there were no effective drugs or vaccines to this killer flu people around the world were ordered to wear masks close schools theaters and businesses even today the cause of the Spanish flu is not quite known which means despite its name it did not originate from Spain in fact historians attribute the association of the Spanish flu to Spain from the fact that the news coverage of the flu derived in that country during World War 1 Spain was a neutral country with a free media that covered the outbreak from the start meanwhile allied countries in the Central Powers had wartime censors who covered up news of the flu to keep morale high because Spanish news sources were the only ones reporting on the phlume and he believed it originated from there which means that another characteristic of outbreaks is apparently misinformation but moving on and then there's the fact that the flu hits Spain particularly hard even the Spanish king alfonso xiii reportedly contracted the flu one unusual aspect of the 1918 flu is that it struck down many previously young and healthy people of course is the strain of the flu was spreading the world was largely at war which meant that soldiers all over the world were not only fighting for their lives on the battlefield but we're also trying to protect themselves from an invisible enemy many historians attribute the high spread ability of the flu to the fact that it coincided with war times since soldiers were closely quartered in large numbers it's very possible that only a few people had the Spanish flu in the beginning but unknowingly spread it and the soldiers came home from overseas and now the rest is pandemic history it's estimated that the flu took about 3 percent of the world's population but exact numbers are impossible to confirm due to the lack of medical record-keeping in many places up next on the pandemic hot list is small pox small pox is believed to have first infected humans about 12,000 years ago in fact many historians speculate that smallpox likewise brought about the devastating plague of Athens and the Athena I'm plagued you may have heard about this early disease in your history classes in the fact that many European explorers unknowingly carried smallpox over to the new world with the story of these small pox infected blankets is for another time when it reached Europe in the sixth century a bishop in France described its symptoms to include a violent fever followed by yeah you guessed it small red pox all over the body when experts at the time figured out that no one can contract smallpox twice survivors of the disease were often called upon to try to nurse victims back to life in fact some doctors tried to purposefully expose young and healthy individuals with a mild strain of smallpox so they could contract the disease and go on to help others and if those aren't whacky enough stories of early medicine then there's the fact that some doctors thought exposure to red objects would serve as a remedy for smallpox and then there's the fact that many historical leaders were reported to have contracted the infectious disease we're talking the monarchs of England Russia Ethiopia China and Japan Queen Elizabeth the first of England and the u.s. President Abraham Lincoln also apparently contracted smallpox during their time in office though they lived to tell the tale after centuries of havoc smallpox was officially declared eradicated by the World Health Organization on May 8 1980 14 centuries later from its first major wave in Europe a Brit named Edward Jenner an 18th century doctor is credited with discovering a vaccine for smallpox without going into too much detail the discovery involved milkmaids and a milder virus called cow pox we told you early medicine was wacky which brings us to the disease so famous it has its own book the Black Death archaeologist Hugh Wilmot at the University of Sheffield says that amongst experts hundreds of millions of people fell victim to the bubonic plague in fact it wiped out half of England's very own population the name Black Death is suggested to be a mistranslation by some fancy latin experts if you were interested in a true translation it's more or less the terrible death due to its plentiful symptoms including gangrene which refers to in extremities goblak it all started in the Middle East in Europe in the 14th century but the period you're probably most familiar with is actually considered the second plague which affected mostly Europe it's believed to have been the result of an infectious fever likely transmitted from rodents to humans but the bite of infected fleas let's just say the history the black plague gets a little dark get it because of the color black never mind in the early 1500s England imposed a law to separate and isolate the sick homes with sick people were marked by bales of hay strung to a pole outside of the doors and if you had an infected family member he had to carry a white pole with you when he went in public we don't even want to talk about what they did to domestic cats dogs and animals alike let's just say that you should hug your dog Rufus a bit tighter tonight Brainerd doctors and medical professionals even geared up and famous beak or bird-like masks to protect themselves from infection up until the last major plague outbreak of 1720 but some good did come out of all of this some historians argue that public health had improved to such an extent that it developed systematic and effective use of sanitary legislation in other words cleaner sewers anti-littering policies and weakly regulated garbage pickups and then there's also the fact that the end of the plague marks at the end of cheap labor which encouraged technological innovation throughout the world so it's clear that this isn't the world's first pandemic which as we said earlier is actually good news government's health care workers and policy makers currently have lots of historical examples of how best to fight the current situation they aren't looking as far as smallpox in the Black Plague but the 1918 influenza situation definitely has a valuable lesson or two although every epidemic is different there was a strong relationship between early and strict intervention and containing a virus on the non-pharmaceutical side canceling public gatherings closing schools and businesses and self-isolation are all steps previously taken during other outbreaks social distancing is also an important step to containing a disease and a 2007 academic study of the 1918 influenza cities in the United States that intervened early and intensively slowed transmission through the practice of social distancing take st. Louis and Missouri which showed smaller peaks at the time of the influenza compared to cities that took longer to such as Philadelphia there's even recent evidence when a report compared Chinese cities Wuhan and clangs ow from January to February 2020 Gregg now implemented strict social distancing within a week which resulted in lower epidemic sizes and Peaks whereas Wuhan did so six weeks later and well all know how that turned out to this day there's no treatment or vaccine available for the 1918 influenza but it was considered eradicated in the summer of 1919 due to the world's immunity levels as for vaccines for diseases our history shows that we've made great progress in similar times take the 2009 h1n1 flu when vaccine research started in April 2009 a vaccine became tried tested and available in December later that year then the pandemic was considered eradicated in August 2010 this goes to show that we are now more than ever equipped to research and discover vaccines thanks to contemporary medicine it took h1n1 to find a vaccine in eight months which is far more advanced than the decades it took the milkmaid doctor to find a vaccine for smallpox so what does this all mean what can we learn from it that the human race is pretty resilient although no two outbreaks are the same there are valuable lessons that we can take away from each scenario the policies implemented by local governments are totally up to code and normal considering the circumstances in fact you should actually feel a bit relieved brainerd because of the technology we have in place could you imagine people socially distancing before the invention of YouTube yeah we can't the bottom line is that our current situation isn't the first threatening disease that surged around the world nor will it be the last but things could be worse start turning black until next time keep your head up Brainerd see you later [Music]

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Views: 71,730

Rating: 4.8994117 out of 5

Keywords: epidemics, coronavirus, covid-19, 1918 influenza, smallpox, history of diseases, brainiac

Id: gCetCr6Y_yg

Length: 10min 44sec (644 seconds)

Published: Sat May 02 2020