When asked what a pandemic is the average contemporary American cannot answer nor see it as a threat. This has been attributed to the lack of understanding, the oxford dictionary defines a pandemic as a disease that spreads over a whole country or the whole world. Now In order for a disease to be considered by the CDC as a pandemic, it must first be referenced as an epidemic that has spread over several countries or continents, usually affecting a large number of people. and an epidemic happens when an Agent or a susceptible host is present on a large scale, in laymen's term it simply means that an epidemic occurs when a recent increase in the amount of or virulence of the agent, a recent introduction of an agent in a setting where it has not seen before, an enhanced mode of transmission which exposes more people, a change in the susceptibility of hosts, or factors of introduction through new ports of entry.
Therefore a disease does not need to impact the entire world to simply be defined as a pandemic. some diseases such as smallpox originated from India or Egypt around 3,000 years ago the earliest and famous case of it is in the mummified remains of the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses the 5th who died in 1157BC.
Smallpox is categorized as a category A critical biological agent by the CDC because of its transmissibility, high morbidity, and mortality. therefore Smallpox has sufficient criteria to be considered pandemic scale. Other famous diseases that have once been categorized as pandemics would be Cholera which causes severe diarrhea, leads to dehydration, and even death, cholera is introduced into the host by eating food or drinking water that has been contaminated with Vibro Cholerae.
The Bubonic plague is where three types of plagues; bubonic, septic, and pneumonic plague. these plagues were caused by the bacteria yersinia pestis. symptoms of the disease are fever, headache, and vomiting. then lastly large painful lymph would grow from where the infection entered the body. most theorize that this plague ended when quarantine tactics where implemented, therefore the disease naturally ran its course.
Now the Covid-19 pandemic is simply a zoonotic disease that belongs to the Sars family of viruses it is believed that the disease originated from a wet market in Wuhan China. this is were Chinese authorities believed that the virus was allowed to grow and invade a human host through bats or Pangolins. when the first cases were acknowledged by Wuhan doctors on Dec 31 (according to the W.H.O) the Chinese communist party quickly silenced various doctors that were reporting it to the general public and specifically censure its public through online means. Several reports indicated that it took up to nine days for china acknowledge the pathogen, the department of homeland security found that china intentionally concealed the severity of Covid-19 during this time it was found that china began to hoard medical equipment and when interviewed the mayor of Wuhan admitted to the government laked some transparency "It might have been a fortunate thing for containing the new coronavirus if the public had listened to this 'rumor' at the time.” when the disease reached Europe it mutated in order to spread much more faster, some specialist belive that the COVID-19 strain in the east coast is this exact one. And the strain on the west coast is the original strain. Today America ponders between reopening its business while sacrificing its public health or remaining closed while sacrificing its economy, It's like the Early evangelist Lorenzo Dow coined "YOU’LL BE DAMNED IF YOU DO AND DAMNED IF YOU DON’T"
