تاريخ در بحران- درس‌هايي براي كوويد-19

History in a Crisis — Lessons for Covid-19

ميكروبيولوژيست‌هاي معتبر Macfarlane Burnet و David White در سال 1972 پيش‌بيني كرده بودند كه "محتمل‌ترين پيش‌بيني درباره آينده بيماري‌هاي عفوني اين است كه بسيار مبهم خواهد بود (1)." آن‌ها يادآور شدند كه هميشه "خطر ابتلا به يك بيماري عفوني جديد، خطرناك و كاملاً غيرمنتظره وجود دارد؛ اما در پنجاه سال گذشته چنين چيزي اتفاق نيفتاده است". به نظر مي‌رسيد فقط جنبه‌ي اپيدمي مورد توجه مورخان بوده است.

Writing in the heady days of new antibiotics and immunizations, esteemed microbiologists Macfarlane Burnet and David White predicted in 1972 that “the most likely forecast about the future of infectious diseases is that it will be very dull.” When asked to explain past events, historians are quick to assert the importance of context. If you want to understand how or why something happened, you must attend to local circumstances. But there is something about epidemics that has elicited an opposite reaction from historians: a desire to identify universal truths about how societies respond to contagious disease. Epidemics unfold as social dramas in three acts, according to Rosenberg. Disclosure forms provided by the author are available at NEJM.org.