Lesson: Pandemic

We can look back at recent history and see the SARS epidemic of 2002-03 or the Ebola outbreak from 2013-16, which reached epidemic proportions, as examples of when viruses spread and caught the world’s attention. Now, at the beginning of 2020, we may be witnessing the nascent stages of another potential pandemic. I say potential because both SARS and Ebola presented themselves as looming pandemics but never developed to that point. Both remained classified as epidemics. Currently, the as-yet-unnamed coronavirus coming from Wuhan, China, is scary because it has never been seen before in humans and can be transmitted from person to person. At the beginning of the Chinese New Year celebrations, the government of China shut down transportation to and from multiple cities, thereby guaranteeing hundreds of millions of people. Is the world ready to prevent the next pandemic? Even if the current situation does not develop into one, do you feel the current situation is being handled correctly? Is China doing a good job? Can we trust any one country to reveal everything about an outbreak? These are just some of the questions the world is asking.