The evolution of Covid-19 shows why medical science on its own is not enough to stop epidemics

The Covid-19 pandemic transformed over the past five years from a catastrophic threat that has killed over 7 million people to what most people regard today as a tolerable annoyance that doesn’t require precaution. Nonetheless, Covid-19 continues to kill over 2,000 people per month globally and cause severe illness in the infirm or elderly.

The evolution of the Covid-19 pandemic – from devastation, to optimism for eradication, to persistent, uneven spread of disease – may seem unprecedented. As an infectious disease doctor and medical historian, however, I see similarities to other epidemics, including syphilis, AIDS and tuberculosis.

Vaccines, medications and other biomedical breakthroughs are necessary to eliminate epidemic diseases. But as I explore in my book, Persisting Pandemics, social, economic and political factors are equally important. On its own, medical science is not enough.

Syphilis, AIDS and TB have stuck around

Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease first identified in 1495. It causes skin rashes and may progress to causing paralysis, blindness or both. For centuries, syphilis weakened nations by disabling parents, workers and soldiers in the prime of their lives. Innovative drugs – first Salvarsan (1909), then penicillin (1943) – offered a path toward eradication when used together with widespread testing.

Public health programmes conducted from the 1930s through the 2000s, however, failed – not because of...

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