Pandemics in Human History: Lessons Learned and Lasting Impacts

Health crises, particularly in the form of pandemics, have a long history of destroying and disrupting the political, social, and economic order of organized human societies. There is a continuous endeavor to derive lessons from these historical events to better comprehend, prepare for, and mitigate the impacts of future pandemics. This review article, adopting the perspectives of crisis management and crisis communication, seeks to operationalize historical human experiences in the realm of policy-making. By engaging with both academic and popular literature on past pandemic events, the article endeavors to apply these insights to the COVID-19 pandemic while the crisis was still unfolding. The findings indicate that the most pertinent lessons from past health crises are often not accurately learned or applied, potentially due to political pressures that emerge during such crises.