Author Description

Can we beat the virus before it kills us? Societies have struggled with pandemics for thousands of years. Plague and cholera, smallpox and influenza; deadly diseases spring up, kill thousands, if not millions, and we still don’t learn. We make the same mistakes again and again. Defeating an infectious agent should not be complicated. The principles of public health are straightforward and have not changed for more than a hundred years. But we are stubborn. Rather than learn from the past, we want to make our own mistakes. So that future generations can make them all over again. There is still time for us to take the well-known steps to crush the novel coronavirus. But will our hubris and politics stand in the way? Will we allow a virus to beat us again?