Throughout history, pandemics have forced changes in human behaviour, some of them permanent and lasting, others a temporary fix, and some kept in reserve to be implemented when the world is under attack.

The world learnt from each of these pandemics and the lessons have echoed down to the coronavirus crisis. For much of the 19th century, the germ theory of disease, that illness could be spread from person to person, was viewed with suspicion. Once it became accepted, the fight against TB in the US changed sanitation forever as people cared about the health of their water system...

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