Does The Pandemic Have an End?

  https://theconversation.com/how-do-pandemics-end-history-suggests-diseases-fade-but-are-almost-never-truly-gone-146066


The answer is "yes" and "no." Pandemic diseases do fade away, eventually, but can recur over time. The "Conversation" article turns to history for a brief, concise history. I suspected that something like Covid-19 could pop up somewhere down the line even after vaccines and stricter public health measures seem to have defeated it. That idea is something I've been intending to include in Deciphering Zach, but hesitated for lack of specific knowledge. 

The truth is that infectious diseases simply don't go away once they've appeared. Their danger may not be as great as in the past, but that is due to the continuation of conditions that favor their suppression: sanitation, medical interventions, vaccines. Bubonic plague still exists and takes a few lives most years, in the American southwest. Given the right circumstances, it could once again become a world-wide pandemic. 

Like climate change denial, pandemic denial is a contributor to the rise and spread of deadly diseases. Today, with the rolling rises and falls in sickness and deaths throughout the world, we are seeing the failure of humans to come to terms with a deadly reality that favors no one.

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