Lessons (Un)Learned from the History of Pandemics

Since the beginning of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has dominated nearly every aspect of daily life. Particularly throughout the Global North, home to the most prosperous nations, the pandemic has produced a wave of anxiety. Given the average age of people living in the West, most have never experienced a great war or major upheaval like the pandemic. As a result, their perception of threat is at immeasurably high levels, and the West’s pronounced anxiety and threat perception have infected other parts of the world thanks to mass media. Hence, all over the world, people perceive the pandemic with a high level of sensitivity. No doubt, the pandemic’s life-threatening nature makes us all susceptible to COVID-19 and to pandemic diseases in general. This article hopes to shed light on the historical human experience of pandemics, which might help us understand better what is happening today and what we will encounter in the future. In this context, it presents the history of pandemics in the world and Turkey and helps us think through what lessons we have learned and those that have remained (un)learned.