Yoshio Takaki (1005365089)
Professor Jody Cundy
HISB10H3 LEC01
November 26th, 2020
The Athens Plague and Lessons We Can Learn to Resolve Our Current Pandemic
Epidemics are one of the greatest threats facing mankind. With a steadily increasing population and decreasing living space available, humans are living closer and closer to one another. The more interactions people have, the higher risk of transmitting viruses there is. This increased risk of transmission and was one of the many problems Athenians faced during the plague. The Peloponnesian war confined citizens within the walls of their homes, and also brought in many refugees from nearby villages. A pandemic will always lead to casualties, but the severity depends on the motives and precautions taken. The decisions that authoritative figures make impact the amount of people exposed to the virus and thus determines the amount of risk each person has. These decisions usually revolve around different motives. Countries work towards different objectives, whether it is a stronger economy or winning a war. We cannot simply sit and wait for the virus to die out before we resume the lifestyle prior to an epidemic. Sacrifices must be made, and the extent of the epidemic’s destruction is determined on how our leaders respond.
The untimely plague of Athens began a year after the start of the Peloponnesian war which started around 431 B.C. (Shrewsbury, 1950). The city had gone under siege from Peloponnesian forces and had taken in roughly 300,000 refugees (Robert, 2009). The overcrowding of Athens, exacerbated with poor hygiene and sanitation, increased the spread of infected lice (Shrewsbury, 1950). To make matters worse, the plague was contracted in a ‘virgin society,’ meaning that it was the first account of the plague (Robert, 2009). Doctors were ignorant of its effects and those who had tried to implement interventions would soon contract the disease themselves and die. Thucydides studied the contagious nature of the virus, but even with this information, infection numbers continued to rise (Holladay & Poole, 1979). The Plague that crippled the Athenians is assumed to be typhus fever; it is transmitted through lice from person to person (WHO, 2011). The symptoms generally begin two weeks after contracting the virus. The infected would manifest a fever, muscle aches, coughing, and vomiting (WHO, 2011). Unlike COVID-19, Typhus infected all alike; the strong and the weak all fared similar fates (Hillard, 2006). The Athenians were undoubtedly trapped between an army outside their walls, and a plague trapped within. Despite the plague killing nearly a quarter of the total population, they continued to fight the war with some success. The plague lasted nearly five years and although it is not clear how it ended, overpopulation and a high density population did not help mitigate the spread of the plague. The war caused overcrowding of citizens in a cramped space, and thus the disease was able to spread as quickly as it did. The Athenians tried to slow the spread of the plague by burning corpses and dumping them into massive graves, but this was not enough to prevent transmission. Due to the government’s failure to recognize the extent of the problem, those who were infected became even sicker, and the virus continued to spread like wildfire.
SARS-CoV-2 is a virus that is transmitted from person to person, though not as deadly as the plague of Athens was. COVID-19, the disease contracted from SARS-CoV-2, is mainly lethal to older adults and has little effect on younger adults. However, it is easily transmitted between all populations. The start of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada initiated a quarantine mandate, which greatly helped slow down and reduce transmission. With advanced technology and medical development, vaccines are an option we have that the Athenians did not. Despite this, it could take years for a functioning vaccine to be developed. With people becoming unemployed, and the government only being able to distribute a limited sum of money to citizens, the dilemma we face is whether or not we should reopen the economy. This was decided on several different factors such as incidence rate, the density of the population, and the precautions taken by employers and employees. As each province started to reopen while following proper protocol, they implemented different stages to slowly reinstate different businesses. After only a few months, there have been an increasing number of COVID-19 cases every day, with some days setting new all-time highs. The quarantine worked for the first few months after it was sanctioned, but now we are reversing the progress. We are essentially mimicking what the Atenians did, running back inside the castle gates with all the infected citizens. The measures taken to reopen were not strict enough and we are paying the price. Each stage of reopening was implemented far too quickly, and to make matters worse, schools are opening back up as well. It is evident that reopening of the economy was rushed and now we are relapsing into another quarantine.
Even with state-of-the-art technology and medical expertise, we are following in the footsteps of the Athenians. We need to slow down the reopening of businesses and focus on health and safety measures by limiting transmission of the virus, SARS-CoV-2. This virus may be around for a while and there needs to be a better plan to re-incorporate businesses into the economy. An apparent problem with this strategy is that small businesses may not be able to survive. Hence, the government should take them into account when making this decision. Some ways that the government can support smaller businesses that may not survive due to closures include encouraging localism, offering grants, and offering programs that provide financial or mental health assistance (Service Canada, 2020). To conclude, poor judgement and ignorance from the government had previously crippled an empire, and if we do not change the status quo, history will repeat itself.
References
Hillard, Tom W. “CHILDREN AND THE ONSET OF THE ATHENIAN 'PLAGUE'.”
Mediterranean Archaeology, 19/20, 2006, pp. 151–167. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/24668195. Accessed 26 Nov. 2020.
Holladay, A. J., and J. C. F. Poole. “Thucydides and the Plague of Athens.” The Classical
Quarterly, vol. 29, no. 2, 1979, pp. 282–300. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/638096.
Accessed 27 Nov. 2020.
Robert, Littman. “The plague of Athens: Epidemiology and Paleopathology”.Mount Sinai
Journal of Medicine, vol 76.2009,pp.456-467
Service Canada. “Managing Your Business during COVID-19.” Government of Canada, 24 Nov.
Shrewsbury, J. F. D. “THE PLAGUE OF ATHENS.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine,
vol. 24, no. 1, 1950, pp. 1–25. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44443484. Accessed 4 Nov.
2020.
WHO. (2011, November 11). Typhus fever (Epidemic louse-borne typhus). Retrieved November
26, 2020, from https://www.who.int/ith/diseases/typhusfever/en/