# PANDEMICS / A SHORT HISTORY OF DISEASE

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Category: Health
Slides: 14
Updated: 2026-05-17T20:55:56.268Z
Tags: catalog, health, pandemics

## Summary

From Justinian's plague to the COVID-19 era — thirteen panels of contagion, catastrophe, and the slow accumulation of public-health wisdom. Key sections include: PANDEMICS; A SHORT HISTORY OF DISEASE; THE PLAGUE OF JUSTINIAN; THE BLACK DEATH; SMALLPOX CROSSES THE ATLANTIC; THE GREAT INFLUENZA; HIV / AIDS; SARS — THE NEAR MISS; H1N1 — "SWINE FLU"; EBOLA IN WEST AFRICA.

## Slide Outline

1. PANDEMICS
2. A SHORT HISTORY OF DISEASE
3. THE PLAGUE OF JUSTINIAN
4. THE BLACK DEATH
5. SMALLPOX CROSSES THE ATLANTIC
6. THE GREAT INFLUENZA
7. HIV / AIDS
8. SARS — THE NEAR MISS
9. H1N1 — "SWINE FLU"
10. EBOLA IN WEST AFRICA
11. COVID-19
12. LESSONS FROM THE FIELD
13. THE NEXT ONE
14. KEEP STUDYING. KEEP WASHING.

## Slide Transcript

### Slide 1: PANDEMICS

- PUBLIC HEALTH BULLETIN — SERIES No.13
- A SHORT HISTORY OF DISEASE
- From Justinian's plague to the COVID-19 era — thirteen panels of contagion, catastrophe, and the slow accumulation of public-health wisdom.
- WASH HANDS
- COVER COUGH
- VACCINATE
- STAY HOME
- EST. 541 AD — PRESENT DAY
- CLASSIFIED · ESSENTIAL READING

### Slide 2: THE PLAGUE OF JUSTINIAN

- CHAPTER I · 541 – 549 AD
- Bubonic plague arrives at Constantinople via Egyptian grain ships. Procopius records 10,000 dead in a single day. The Byzantine empire — at its medieval zenith under Justinian I — staggers.
- ~25–50 million dead across the Mediterranean
- Manpower collapse stalls Justinian's reconquest of the West
- First documented pandemic of Yersinia pestis
- Recurs in waves for ~200 years
- 25–50M DEAD
- FLEAS · RATS · GRAIN
- SAMPLE · BUBONIC

### Slide 3: THE BLACK DEATH

- CHAPTER II · 1346 – 1353
- Plague returns from the steppes along Mongol trade routes. Genoese galleys bring it to Sicily. Within seven years, between a third and half of Europe is dead.
- Yersinia pestis — bubonic, septicemic, pneumonic
- Quarantine (quaranta giorni) is invented in Ragusa, 1377
- Wages rise; serfdom collapses; the old order frays
- Plague doctors don beak masks stuffed with herbs
- DANGER · KEEP DISTANCE
- QUARANTINE · 40 DAYS
- 30–50%
- OF EUROPE PERISHED
- ~75–200M
- EURASIAN DEAD

### Slide 4: SMALLPOX CROSSES
THE ATLANTIC

- CHAPTER III · 1500s
- European contact unleashes Variola on populations with no immune memory. Within a century, demographic collapse engulfs the Aztec, Inca, and a thousand smaller nations.
- Up to ~90% of indigenous populations lost over 150 years
- Tenochtitlán falls in part to a smallpox-weakened defense (1521)
- Jenner's vaccine (1796) — the first — finally turns the tide
- Smallpox declared eradicated in 1980

### Slide 5: THE GREAT INFLUENZA

- CHAPTER IV · 1918 – 1920
- An H1N1 strain — likely from a Kansas army camp — rides troop ships across a war-mobilized world. Censored by belligerents, it is misnamed the "Spanish flu."
- ~50 million dead — possibly more than all of WWI's combatants
- Cytokine storm pattern killed young, healthy adults
- Three waves; the autumn 1918 wave was deadliest
- St. Louis masked and closed early — and survived best
- WEAR A MASK
- CLOSE THE THEATERS
- OPEN THE WINDOWS
- WARNING
- INFLUENZA SPREADS BY DROPLET
- WASH HANDS · COVER COUGH

### Slide 6: HIV / AIDS

- CHAPTER V · 1981 – PRESENT
- A retrovirus crosses from chimpanzees in central Africa, dormant for decades. By the 1980s it is a global crisis — and a moral test of public-health response.
- ~40 million dead since the epidemic began
- HAART (1996) and modern antiretrovirals turn HIV into a chronic condition
- U=U: undetectable viral load = untransmittable
- PrEP transforms prevention; vaccines remain elusive
- ~40M
- CUMULATIVE DEATHS
- ~39M
- LIVING WITH HIV TODAY
- 1996
- HAART · TURNING POINT
- PrEP
- PREVENTION REVOLUTION

### Slide 7: SARS — THE NEAR MISS

- CHAPTER VI · 2002 – 2003
- A novel coronavirus jumps from civets in Guangdong markets. Carlo Urbani identifies it; international cooperation contains it within months. We got lucky — and we knew it.
- ~8,000 cases · ~800 deaths in 26 countries
- Spread peaked after symptom onset — easier to isolate
- Hong Kong, Toronto, Singapore: wake-up calls
- Birthed pandemic-preparedness frameworks worldwide
- CONTAINED
- TRACE · ISOLATE · TREAT

### Slide 8: H1N1 — "SWINE FLU"

- CHAPTER VII · 2009
- A reassortant H1N1 — pig, bird, and human lineages — emerges in Mexico. It spreads globally within weeks, but mortality is mercifully low.
- WHO declares pandemic in June 2009
- Estimated 100,000–400,000 deaths worldwide (year one)
- Vaccine produced and distributed within ~6 months
- Lessons: communication trust matters as much as logistics
- PANDEMIC
- DECLARED 11 JUN 2009
- ~6 MO
- FROM EMERGENCE TO VACCINE
- REASSORTANT
- PIG · BIRD · HUMAN

### Slide 9: EBOLA IN WEST AFRICA

- CHAPTER VIII · 2014 – 2016
- A Zaire ebolavirus outbreak ignites in Guinea, then leaps borders into Liberia and Sierra Leone — the largest Ebola outbreak in history. Mortality near 40% of recorded cases.
- ~28,600 cases · ~11,300 deaths
- Burial rituals and weak health systems amplified spread
- Community-led contact tracing turned the tide
- rVSV-ZEBOV vaccine licensed in 2019 — a public-health triumph
- PPE · ISOLATION
- SAFE BURIAL
- RING VACCINATION
- DO NOT TOUCH
- CONTACT PRECAUTIONS REQUIRED

### Slide 10: COVID-19

- CHAPTER IX · 2019 – PRESENT
- SARS-CoV-2 emerges in Wuhan and meets a hyper-mobile world. Lockdowns slow it; mRNA platforms — incubated for decades — deliver vaccines in under a year. The first true pandemic of the mass-mobility era.
- ~7M reported deaths · likely 18–30M excess deaths
- mRNA vaccines (Pfizer · Moderna) authorized in < 12 months
- Variants Alpha, Delta, Omicron reshape transmission
- Long COVID becomes the unfinished chapter
- ~7M
- REPORTED DEATHS
- mRNA
- A PLATFORM TRIUMPH
- ~12 MO
- FROM SEQUENCE TO SHOT
- LONG COVID
- UNFINISHED BUSINESS

### Slide 11: LESSONS FROM THE FIELD

- DEPARTMENT MEMORANDUM
- SURVEILLANCE
- Genomic monitoring, sentinel hospitals, wastewater. You can't fight what you can't see.
- SUPPLY CHAINS
- PPE, reagents, vaccine glass. Single-source bottlenecks are strategic vulnerabilities.
- COMMUNICATION
- Honest uncertainty beats false confidence. Trust is harder to build than a vaccine.
- EQUITABLE ACCESS
- A virus anywhere is a virus everywhere. Hoarded doses are tomorrow's variants.

### Slide 12: THE NEXT ONE

- FORECAST · NEXT THREATS
- Pandemics are not black swans — they are recurring weather. Preparedness is low-cost insurance against catastrophic loss.
- H5N1 avian influenza in dairy cattle — watch the spillovers
- Novel coronaviruses from bat reservoirs
- Antimicrobial resistance — the slow pandemic
- Lab biosafety: dual-use research and accident risk
- 100-day mission: vaccine in 100 days from sequence
- PREPARE NOW
- FUND SURVEILLANCE
- STOCKPILE PPE
- TRAIN STAFF
- SPILLOVER EVENTS · ANNUAL

### Slide 13: KEEP STUDYING.
KEEP WASHING.

- END OF SERIES · FURTHER READING
- BOOKS
- The Great Influenza — John M. Barry
- Plagues and Peoples — William H. McNeill
- Spillover — David Quammen
- The Premonition — Michael Lewis
- The Coming Plague — Laurie Garrett
- VIDEO ARCHIVE
- 1918 Flu Pandemic — YouTube
- mRNA Vaccine Explained — YouTube
- STAY HOME WHEN SICK
- WASH HANDS · COVER COUGH
- — END OF BULLETIN —


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