"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
Spanish philosopher, George Santayana's famous quotation should have been a caution as the world entered into the Covid epidemic back in December 2019.
Instead, we saw a polarization of options that not only highlighted the idol of our time but also a neglect of the history of pandemics. We saw the term "fake news" and a plethora of conspiracy theories take hold, while others cried out with prophetic voices about what would really happen.
One of those prophetic voices was an Australian academic, Dr Stephen Taylor.
There is nothing new under the sun
Taylor's book, The Psychology of Pandemics: Preparing for the Next Global Outbreak of Infectious Disease, was written before Covid as a summary of humanity's responses to contagious disease throughout time. And predictably, after the Covid waves hit, it predicted the same responses that humans made in the past.
My aim in reviewing this is to bring perspective to the polarized emotions of the past three years. My conclusion is that we need greater wisdom in dealing with global turmoil and this points to the need for a God of Hope who does not change like shifting shadows.
Firstly, our comfortable Western societies reacted with disbelief when Covid hit, unlike many other parts of the world that battle epidemics, such as sub-Saharan Africa with Ebola.
Our society acted as if pandemics were something new. Perhaps it was a failed sense of security in science and medicine as our modern idols. However, the history of disease shows that serious epidemics do occur regularly. Let's look at this history.
Biblical times
The term, "quarantine" comes from the Latin/Italian word for 40 days with direct Biblical links: Jesus spent 40 days isolated in the desert. Forty days was the period Noah was in the ark and Moses was on Mt. Sinai. In Old Testament law, someone with leprosy isolated for 40 days before being pronounced "clean" by the priest. The concept is not new.
Terminology
Even our modern terms find their origin in the familiar pattern of ancient lockdowns. People would be quarantined to a "lazaretta" which gets its name from Lazarus, the one Jesus called out from the tomb. In ancient times this meant quarantining people to an isolated spot removed from others. The point is that restraining individual's movements for the benefit of the whole is not new, not even close.
Unprecedented government controls
During the Covid period many dissented against "unprecedented" government controls. Again, this fails to maturely review what other generations experienced.
So, was there unprecedented government control? Actually, no. There are endless precedents. Home isolation was mandated during the first Smallpox outbreaks in the 1690s. Cholera moving around Europe (1793) saw sailors forced to quarantine outside the port until safe.
Taylor builds some of his arguments from Italian medical historian, Eugenia Tognotti, who in 2013 summarized that this control caused aggressive protests of 1789 saying, "In England, liberal reformers contested both quarantine and compulsory vaccination against smallpox. Social and political tensions created an explosive mixture, culminating in popular rebellions and uprisings, a phenomenon that affected numerous European countries"
More recently, the 2003 SARS epidemic forced 30,000 Canadians into lockdown. Similar stories of isolations occurred around the nations of Africa during the 2014 Ebola crisis. Governments of all political positions since Biblical times have attempted to reduce the effect of disease through control.
Some of these were undoubtedly coloured by other political motives. However, there is nothing new in either governments responding to disease like this or people seeing it as draconian. This is just the tension that has reoccurred during the history of humanity.
Vaccine passports
Even the earliest mention of vaccine passports in the Covid journey saw people horrified by this 'new' attempt of control. However, are they new? Actually, no.
Way back in the 1400s they knew that disease was spread through travel. "Bills of Health" were issued to merchants and sailors so they could travel. No Bill meant no entry into a port or town. And this was often enforced by armed troops.
For example, Tognotti explains, "During the terrifying cholera epidemic of 1835–1836, the island of Sardinia was the only Italian region to escape cholera, thanks to surveillance by armed men who had orders to prevent, by force, any ship that attempted to disembark persons or cargo on the coast."
In more recent times in Australia, we saw the requirement of Proof of Vaccination for Yellow Fever for citizens travelling around Asia in the 1960s. In this same time period, Australian troops had mandatory vaccination for service in the Vietnam War (which ironically included enrolment through conscription). There is nothing new about these passports.
The take home message is that disease is part of our world and dealing with those diseases is always going to raise conflict. The history of quarantines highlights that these problems face all nations, all political systems, all socioeconomic status, and all attempts at countering them.
Tognotti summarized in 2013, "Quarantine and other public health practices are effective and valuable ways to control communicable disease outbreaks and public anxiety, but these strategies have always been much debated, perceived as intrusive, and accompanied in every age and under all political regimes by an undercurrent of suspicion, distrust, and riots.
"These strategic measures have raised (and continue to raise) a variety of political, economic, social, and ethical issues. In the face of a dramatic health crisis, individual rights have often been trampled in the name of public good.
"The use of segregation or isolation to separate persons suspected of being infected has frequently violated the liberty of outwardly healthy persons, most often from lower classes, and ethnic and marginalized minority groups have been stigmatized and have faced discrimination."
Summary
Pandemics are not new. Nor are our responses to them. This should caution us to respond, not with less passion, but with a wisdom that we have been here before and we must have a balanced response. Part of this wisdom is knowing that there are always different reactions. Navigating these differences requires a calm wisdom. Polarized responses full of hyperbole are the opposite of this wisdom. And thinking more highly of ourselves, thinking we have all the answers, and thinking that it is all new does not reflect wisdom.
In the Biblical book of Daniel chapter 1 verse 2 it gives a glimpse behind the curtain of world turmoil to a God who is in control. Daniel and the Jewish people had been taken off into exile as slaves by a Babylonian despot. Their lives looked wrecked, their holy home of Jerusalem destroyed and their hope in a future King (Messiah) seemed to have vaporized in the desert air.
However, verse two says it was God who was using this event to bring both judgement and mercy to people. From this event that people saw as unprecedented, God brought a hope of the coming Messiah.
Another example: When this future hope, Jesus, arrived something horrendous happened. He was killed. Yet out of this event we see Jesus' victory over sin and death for all who call on Him.
There is a wisdom that is needed to see beyond the tragedy of pandemics, to see the Creator God using this, as He has done throughout history to have people trust Him, care for others in need and wait patiently for Jesus.
