Plagued: Pandemics from the Black Death to Covid-19 and Beyond

From the Black Death to Covid-19, pandemics have shaped and reshaped human society.

Science and history can give us insight into two urgent questions: Why do they persist? And how can we survive them?

Pandemics have been with us since Homo sapiens appeared on earth nearly 300,000 years ago. Forty percent of our genes are made of DNA from viruses. Yet we still remain vulnerable. Today, we are engulfed by a new pandemic: SARS-CoV-2 or the coronavirus that originated in China and, within four...