Q: Is there a correlation between pandemics and armed conflict? Causation?
A: Throughout history, epidemics and wars circle each other like binary stars. Warfare has been incessant for much of human history. Epidemics occur regularly. The two frequently overlap. Invading armies carried plagues with them and died from them. Until very recently in history, more soldiers died from disease than wounds. While some research on recent wars shows a correlation between high disease stress and the prevalence of armed conflict, especially internal conflict, causation in the case of wars between countries is harder to prove.
Q: How did COVID impact the war in Ukraine?
A: I would reverse the question: How does the war impact the pandemic? In its first two years, COVID-19 hit Russia and Ukraine especially hard. Both countries were in the upper tier of COVID deaths per million.
Ukraine’s public health system was ill-prepared. There were too few trained medical personnel and public health workers, and shortages of equipment and supplies. Ukraine also had one of the lowest vaccination rates in Europe; as of August 2022, still, only 32 percent of the population is fully vaccinated. The war destroyed what was left of the public health system. Hospitals were shelled. Immunizations—not just against COVID-19, but childhood diseases—stopped. We have no accurate figures of how many people have died of illness in bomb shelters or were killed in missile attacks. Five million refugees fled Ukraine to Europe. National survival, not a virus, is the country’s primary concern.
Some analysts attribute Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine at least partially to the two years he spent in extreme isolation as a consequence of the pandemic. It may have been a radicalizing experience that fueled his festering sense of grievance, messianic ambition, and most dangerously, his overestimation of Russia’s and his own power. A delusion of omnipotence is a dictator’s disease. But this is remote psychoanalysis—who knows?
Russia went into the war in somewhat better shape in terms of public health and vaccination rates—52 percent are now fully vaccinated. But the war in Ukraine has also changed priorities and created new problems.
Q: What effect from COVID on society are you most concerned about?
A: We face a host of new threats—not just further variants of COVID-19 and new and resurgent diseases we thought we had corralled, but major wars that, along with drought, bring famine. The Hebrew prophet Ezekiel named four punishments: pestilence, war, famine and “wild beasts.” Today, the wild beasts might describe us.
Public disorder and the Black Death partnered in the 14th century.
A: Although political differences were manifest in many previous pandemics, I have to admit that I was surprised—and saddened—by the extraordinary degree to which COVID-19 cleaved an already divided nation. An effective response to a pandemic requires a community effort. Instead, public health officials and frontline workers were often vilified, threatened, and sometimes attacked. Political affiliations even dictated personal medical decisions, which I thought would be a matter between individuals and their physicians. Rather than applaud those who dedicated themselves—and in some cases died—trying to save lives, there are still those who talk about reckonings. What the hell has happened to America?
Q: That’s a pretty dark assessment, are you pessimistic?
A: Americans are a pessimistic people, though not the most pessimistic compared with other countries. We are, however, obsessed with decline and doom. And historically, pandemics heighten pessimism. The pandemic exposed our weaknesses, it did not deliver a mortal blow. I believe American institutions and, more importantly, Americans are resilient. Since the beginning of the last century, we have come through two world wars and several other costly conflicts, and a long and extremely dangerous Cold War. We have now survived two major and several lesser pandemics, a great depression, and a severe recession. There were times when the country seemed ready to tear itself apart—and there is no guarantee we won’t do so now. Yeah, I think a lot of people are crazy and some of them don’t deserve the time of day, but I’ve got work to do, and complaining, shouting, cringing, or wringing my hands while waiting for someone else to save me isn’t going to get it done. I’m inclined to think that describes most Americans. Which is why I remain optimistic.
This Q and A first appeared in Newsweek and is posted here with the permission of Brian Michael Jenkins.
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