Economics for everyone (episode fifteen) – Lessons from the past
By John F. Sase, Ph.D.
Gerard J. Senick, senior editor
Julie G. Sase, copyeditor
William A. Gross, researcher
“This is, after all, the ultimate role of Archaeology and Archaeometry together, delving in the past cultures to unveil the lifestyle from human remains and reconstruct human past; together with sister history, both aid considerably the present and future trend of humanity.”
—Ioannis Liritzis, full professor of archaeometry and physical sciences at the Aegean University, Rhodes, Greece, in the article “Pandemics from Ancient Times to Covid19: Some Thoughts,” in Mediterranean Archaeology & Archaeometry, 2020
In our previous episode, we explored the subfield of Human Capital Economics, addressed the topic of damage to this Factor of Production due to severe injury or wrongful death, and how the resulting loss of employment creates an additional burden on the families of victims who have suffered. In this episode, we continue to address the complicated matter of the loss of Human Capital by focusing on the effects of pandemics.
We define a pandemic as an outbreak of infectious disease of high prevalence that occurs throughout a wide geographical area and generally affects a significant proportion of the world population over time. Pandemics of influenza and similar infections appear to occur in multiple phases. The first period of high-disease prevalence is followed by a subsequent period of similar prevalence and an initial post-pandemic phase of decreased activity.
Our Urbanized World
Urbanism remains the most critical driver of social and economic life in many countries, including the United States. Most economic innovations occur in large metropolitan areas that continue to prosper today. Proximity constitutes the most critical factor that drives success in cities. Many millennials, who continue to reinvent our economy, prefer the dense social interaction that cities provide. However, to sustain the economy and the vitality of urban areas, we have come to realize the importance of a cohesive infrastructure for private/public health maintenance.
Scientific evidence indicates that epidemics and pandemics, unintended consequences of civilization, have occurred since the Agricultural Revolution replaced nomadic, hunting-gathering societies with a sedentary lifestyle of agrarian culture. Let us address the human and natural causal factors of pandemics. We commence with a historical review of the most significant regional/global outbursts within our human cultural evolution throughout recent millennia. Then we will focus on the Influenza Pandemic of 1918, which devastated communities throughout the United States and most of the modern world.
Lessons from Ancient History
Ever since humans began to live in confined spaces such as villages; fortified enclosures; and larger, more sophisticated urban areas, we have needed to surmount infectious diseases on a larger scale than during the more dissimulated ages of hunting and gathering. Throughout most of recorded history, urban dwellers have lived under crowded and unsanitary conditions. The early settlements also had a surprising characteristic in common with the modern virus outbreaks. Humans lived close to animals, which often carry disease, and the occupants of sieged castles who drank water that was intentionally poisoned by attackers. In the current era, bioweapons develop while laboratories of virology exist close to densely populated areas.
Now let us look at four reported historical pandemics:
• The Athenian Plague: In The Iliad, Homer begins with a description of a plague that strikes the Greek army at Troy circa 700 to 800 BCE. Thucydides writes in greater detail of the Plague of Athens that extended from 430 to 426 BCE in his history of the Peloponnesian War. During that war, Typhoid Fever killed 25% of the Athenian troops along with 25% of the Athenian population. As a result, this spread of disease fatally weakened the dominance of Athens; its virulence prevented a full spreading of the disease. Though the exact cause of the Plague remained unknown for many years, the analysis of teeth recovered from a mass grave beneath the city has confirmed the presence of the bacteria that remains responsible for Typhoid Fever.
• The Antonine Plague: Historians believe in the possibility that Roman soldiers returning from the Near East brought smallpox to the Italian Peninsula, leading to this Plague of 165 to 180 CE. Regardless, this infection killed a total of up to five million persons, 25% of those infected. At the height of a second outbreak, known as the Plague of Cyprian (251 to 266 CE), the infection may have been the same disease that caused the Antonine Plague. During the Cyprian Plague, historical sources state that 5,000 Romans died per day.
• The Plague of Justinian: The first recorded outbreak of the Bubonic Plague from 541 to 750 CE started in Egypt and reached Constantinople during the following spring. At its peak, this Pandemic killed 10,000 people per day and a total of 40% of the city’s inhabitants, according to the Byzantine chronicler Procopius. This Plague continued to spread, eliminating 25% to 50% of the human population throughout the then-known world. As a result, the number of people in Europe dropped by approximately 50% between 550 and 700 CE.
• The Black Death: One of the most devastating pandemics, the Black Death killed an estimated 75 million to 200 million people between 1331 and 1353 CE. Eight centuries after the preceding Justinian Bubonic Plague broke out, this Plague returned to Europe. Starting in Asia, this highly infectious disease reached the Mediterranean region and traveled onward through Western Europe in 1348. Historians believe that Italian merchants fleeing the fighting in Crimea introduced this virus to the broader region. Over the next six years, the Plague killed an estimated 20 to 30 million Europeans—one-third of the total population. In the worst-affected urban areas of the Continent, 50% of the population perished. This outbreak spawned the first of the cycle of European Plague Epidemics that continued until the 18th Century.
Containment and Mitigation
In the management of pandemic outbreaks across the past two millennia, human beings have developed two principal strategies: Containment and Mitigation. We perform Containment at the early stages of an epidemic, intending to track and isolate infected individuals within an identified group to prevent the disease from spreading to the rest of the population. If and when we find evidence that the disease spreads beyond our control, we move toward the Mitigation of the disease to a prevention level. Thereby, we take action to minimize the spread of the disease and to alleviate its effects on our health-care systems and communities. We may take steps for both Containment and Mitigation simultaneously to control further outbreaks.
A key role for epidemiologists emerges through helping policymakers decide upon the main objectives of the mitigation. For example, a goal of the minimization of morbidity and associated mortality may arise to avoid an epidemic peak that overwhelms available health-care services. This action may keep the economic effects within manageable levels by flattening the epidemic curve while waiting for the development and adequate manufacture of vaccines and anti-viral drug therapies.
Lessons Learned from the Past Century
In modern times, we find that unintended natural agents cause pandemics. Unintentional and accidental human events result from laboratory experiments. Also, possibly intentional, manipulated, and targeted agents occur through biological warfare. Throughout recent recorded history, we have witnessed numerous Epidemics, including Smallpox, Cholera, Typhus, Leprosy, Tuberculosis, and Polio. More recent Pandemics include the 1918 Influenza; the continuing HIV/AIDS infection; the 2002-04 SARS (CoV-1); the 2009 (H1N1) Flu; and the 2019 (CoV-2, aka Coronavirus).
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