SL 106 DISEASES WITHOUT BORDERS
Virologists and epidemiologists have been predicting and preparing for a viral outbreak, such as COVID-19, for many years. Live animal markets that can act as viral mixing bowls, increased world travel, and population density have made a pandemic basically inevitable. This course will journey through the Middle Ages with the bacterium Yersinia pestis as it hitches a long and slow ride on oriental rat fleas, spreading the plague along the Silk Road and across Europe and Africa. It will follow the travels of 64-year-old Dr. Liu Jianlun, who had treated SARS patients in Guangdong before checking into Hong Kong’s Metropole Hotel. While staying at this elite hotel, his path crossed with many guests from all over the world. Unwittingly, they spread the SARS virus to 30 countries. However, the 2003 SARS pandemic was the pandemic that wasn’t — it only infected 8,400 people. The SARS-CoV-1 virus was stopped much quicker than its offspring, the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which is responsible for COVID-19. What makes two similar diseases, such as SARS and COVID, behave so differently? Why was it so difficult to control COVID? The COVID-19 pandemic was devastating; it impacted our health, psychological well- being, and education; and it highlighted the casual and common misuse of science. In this course, diseases, pandemics, their causes, and interdisciplinary (scientific, economic, and political) aspects of epidemics will be explored with a nod to the complexities of world interdependence.
Enrollment Limit
Enrollment limited to 16 students.
Attributes
MOID, W