Thread by @Helenreflects

The covid fatalists (aka "covid centrists") would have us believe that we don't do deep and lasting societal and structural changes in the light of infectious disease. But nothing could be further from the truth. A small and incomplete thread 1/

Quarantining the sick is probably the oldest infrastructural, deep societal and comprehensive way ancient people dealt with contagious diseases such as leprosy. Venice built an island off its coast, for sailors from plague-infested ships 2/
npr.org/sections/goats…

The introduction of sewage systems that separate waste and drinking water is a huge infrastructural undertaking we still benefit from today, to combat cholera (which came in several epidemic waves) 3/

Chicago, in the face of cholera, typhus and other water-transmitted diseases raised the ground level and reversed the flow of a river! See here how-- 4/

AIDS is no longer the existential threat in the US as it once was (unfortunately, it is still rampant in other parts of the world, but just think of how many permanent changes we have as a result of the AIDS pandemic. For example condoms ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…. 5/

Or the rules on blood donation for sexually active bisexual and gay men. The deferral period has only recently been shortened by FDA from 12 to 3 months. 6/

hrc.org/resources/bloo…

Polio was a devastating illness that killed and disabled permanently many people, coming in several waves. My grandma would still boil toys she gave to her greatgrandkids. It was a scour. It even led to school closures!
See e.g nber.org/system/files/w…
npr.org/sections/goats… 7/

School closures were harmful on educational attainment (esp the early ones when no remote learning backups were available). But still, it was an intervention people did to try to drive polio down. Fortunately, polio became "mild" and "endemic" without any action, right? 8/

Wrong. As you'll see all these American states (i.e., all states) require polio immunization for your kid to attend public elementary school. There are many other immunizations required, such as for measles, whooping cough etc 9/
immunize.org/laws/polio.asp

Throughout history, people have adapted their behavior in various ways, they have mandated vaccinations, installed quarantining, even overhauled entire city planning infrastructure to deal with infectious disease. They didn't sit and wait for it to become "mild" and "endemic" 10/

You'll also note that they didn't just leave it up to individual initiative (e.g., "If you think you'll want to protect your kid from polio feel free to vaccinate but don't tell others what to do", or "If you don't want cholera, just boil your water". 11/

Of course, I very much hope that covid recedes without sustained interventions since most north Atlantic countries seem so eager to ditch any covid-mitigating measures (the equivalent of stopping polio vaccines for kids bc after all it's receded). But there's no guarantee 12/

But those who say "We never did anything structural to avert the uncontrolled spread of infectious disease" are simply lying or ignorant of history (I am not an expert in the history of infectious disease, anyone who is can give scores more examples) /end