Psychiatry of Pandemics Quotes

“As the public anxieties about infectious disease outbreaks
rose in recent years with the advent of SARS, N1H1 flu, Ebola,
and Zika, we observed in awe how the public would react to an
impending outbreak in their midst and how those public fears
would emerge and spread like, well, an epidemic. A wave of
public angst anticipating an outbreak would swell, crest, and
then subside, very much like the wave of the infection outbreak
itself. In the wake of both waves, relief would follow.”
― Damir Huremovic, Psychiatry of Pandemics: A Mental Health Response to Infection Outbreak

“Despite its immense effect on the global civilization, Spanish flu started to fade quickly from the public and scientific attention, establishing a precedent for the future pandemics, and leading some historians (Crosby) to call it the “forgotten pandemic”. One of the explanations for this treatment of the pandemic may lie in the fact that it peaked rapidly, over a period of 9 months before it even could get adequate media coverage. Another reason may be in the fact that the pandemic was overshadowed by more significant historical events, such as the culmination and the ending of World War I. A third explanation may be that this is how societies deal with such rapidly spreading pandemics – at first with great interest, horror, and panic, and then, as soon as they start to subside, with dispassionate disinterest.”
― Damir Huremovic, Psychiatry of Pandemics: A Mental Health Response to Infection Outbreak