HEC forum : an interdisciplinary journal on hospitals' ethical and legal issues
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Decades ago, in his foundational essay on the early days of the AIDS crisis, medical historian Charles Rosenberg wrote, "epidemics start at a moment in time, proceed on a stage limited in space and duration, following a plot line of increasing revelatory tension, move to a crisis of individual and collective character, then drift toward closure." In the course of epidemics, societies grappled with sudden and unexpected mortality and also returned to fundamental questions about core social values. "Epidemics," Rosenberg wrote, "have always provided occasion for retrospective moral judgment" (Rosenberg 1989, pp. 2, 9). Following Rosenberg's observations, this essay places COVID-19 in the context of epidemic history to examine common issues faced during health crises-moral, political, social, and individual. ⋯ While historians are not prognosticators, understanding past experience offers new perspectives for the present. The essay concludes by identifying aspects of history relevant to the road ahead.