As we approach the one-year mark for the Coronavirus Pandemic a Michigan medical historian shares his perspective on what we’re going through at this point compared to the influenza pandemic of 1918.
University of Michigan physician, author and medical historian Dr. Howard Markel has been sought nationally and internationally for his view on the global health crisis and also helped coin the term “flatten the curve” that we heard about so much at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
He says it’s now time to say that this pandemic is very different from what happened over a hundred years ago. He says COVID-19 is a different virus then what people dealt with back then although it spreads in similar ways, he says we know a great deal more about this virus then was known about the virus in 1918. And there is a vaccine this time around.
"It is safe. I'm behind it. It is the only way out of this nightmare"
Dr. Markel says he is confident this pandemic will end but he still can’t say when.