any people blame the corona
virus epidemic on globalization and
say the only way to prevent more
such outbreaks is to deglobalize the
world: build walls, restrict travel,
reduce trade. However, while short
term quarantine is essential to stop epidemics,
longterm isolationism will lead to economic col
lapse without offering any real protection against
infectious diseases. Just the opposite. The real anti
dote to epidemics is cooperation.
Epidemics killed millions of people long before
the current age of globalization. In the 14th cen
tury, there were no airplanes or cruise ships, and
yet the Black Death spread from East Asia to West
ern Europe in little more than a decade, killing at
least a quarter of the population. In 1520, Mexico
had no trains or even donkeys, yet it took only a
year for a smallpox epidemic to decimate up to a
third of its inhabitants. In 1918, a particularly vir
ulent strain of flu managed to spread within a few
months to the remotest corners of the world. It in
fected more than a quarter of the human species
and killed tens of millions.
In the century that passed since 1918, human
kind has become ever more vulnerable to epidem
ics, because of a combination of growing popula
tions and better transport. Today a virus can travel
business class across the world in 24 hours and in
fect mega cities of millions. We should therefore
have expected to live in an infectious hell, with one
deadly plague after another.
However, both the incidence and impact of
epidemics have actually gone down dramati
cally. Despite horrendous outbreaks such as
AIDS and Ebola, epidemics kill a far smaller
proportion of humans in the 21st century than
in any previous time since the Stone Age. This
is because the best defense humans have against
pathogens is not isolation; it is information.
Humanity has been winning the war against
epidemics because in the arms race between
pathogens and doctors, pathogens rely on blind
mutations while doctors rely on the scientific
analysis of information.
During the past century, scientists, doctors
and nurses throughout the world have pooled
information and together managed to understand
both the mechanism behind epidemics and the
means of countering them. The theory of evolution
explained why and how new diseases erupt and old
diseases become more virulent. Genetics enabled
scientists to spy on the pathogens’ own instruction
manual. Once scientists understood what causes
epidemics, it became much easier to fight them.
Vaccinations, antibiotics, improved hygiene
and a much better medical infrastructure have
allowed humanity to gain the upper hand over its
invisible predators.
What does this history teach us for the cur
rent coronavirus epidemic? First, it implies that
you cannot protect yourself by permanently clos
ing your borders. Remember that epidemics spread
rapidly even in the Middle Ages, long before the age
of globalization. So even if you reduce your global
connections to the level of a medieval kingdom,
that still would not be enough. To really protect
yourself through isolation, you would have to go
back to the Stone Age. Can you do that?
Second, history indicates that real protection
comes from the sharing of reliable scientific
information, and from global solidarity. When
one country is struck by an epidemic, it should be
willing to honestly share information about the
outbreak without fear of economic catastrophe—
while other nations should be able to trust that
information, and should be willing to extend a
helping hand rather than ostracize the victim.
International cooperation is needed also for
VIEWPOINT
Humanity needs trust and cooperation to fight the pandemic
BY YUVAL NOAH HARARI
M
CORONAVIRUS
DISEASE IN A
WORLD WITHOUT
A LEADER
