“The Black Death has undoubtedly left the most notable traces. We are no longer aware of it today because it happened so long ago. But we have to imagine that so many people died within a society that half of all positions, of all roles, could not be filled anymore. There were no heirs, and there were no workers, there were no more positions of power, the people had disappeared, in a sense. This means that this society had to reinvent itself, so to speak, and change its roles and positions so that they could still function at all. The aftermath in art and literature is correspondingly extensive, thinking of Boccaccio or the many paintings. Then syphilis, for example, has changed sexual behavior forever. And tuberculosis as an example, the intellectuals' disease: Verdi, Puccini, Thomas Mann, and so on. When, in fact, it was a worker's disease and led to a change in cities in the context of social-hygienic measures. It also had an enormous effect on health behavior. I am thinking of the anti-spitting campaign, for example. Today we laugh about it. So people no longer spit in the street. There have been massive changes in behavior.”

“The medical theory at the time was completely different. One explained all these events basically from the constellations of the stars - take the famous Parisian plague report from the 14th century or the syphilis report for example. But people's everyday experience was completely different and they very quickly realized that diseases are transmitted in a certain way. But that has nothing to do with our current theories at all. It is only because we can prove scientifically today that we have, let's say, a decided and verifiable use of these measures. To sum it up in one sentence: These earlier measures were purely pragmatic and born out of experience, without any particular level of knowledge behind them. Today, all these measures are partly proven bacteriologically, but above all, epidemiologically, and only then introduced. This is the fundamental difference.”

“In case of the plague, one first of all had to overcome the plague, so to speak, and only when the plague returned repeatedly did one reactively ward off dangers by quarantining, that is, isolating strangers and suspects or by using so-called Kontumaz-stations, which means designated places for storing and fumigating goods. And later, on the level of the territorial states, medical and sanitary supervision developed, and the first statistics were compiled to track what was going on. It was completely different with cholera though. Cholera is the worldwide pandemic of the industrialization era from 1830 onwards in Europe. A precautionary health protection system was developed under the premise of a false medical, but significant political theory, namely this anti-contagionism, i.e. free movement of goods and people and no isolation and barrier measures. The industrial regions and cities were equipped in such a way that cholera could not even gain a foothold there. This also applies to the first beginnings of an international health system. The first international health conferences and medical conferences were held from around 1850 onwards. Measures taken in the case of the Spanish flu still apply with COVID-19 today: Controlling contacts, personal protection, mouth protection, disinfection, isolation of sick people. So the reactions to such mass events are always dependent on time and culture. We can see this even now in how the different societies, nations, and states react to COVID-19.”

“I am very convinced that the world as it is today will see pandemics again and again. Because you could also see Corona coming. If you go back, in the 80s AIDS went around the world, then SARS-1, MERS, Ebola, Zika, in between came the bird flu and the swine flu, so there were many warning shots. Fortunately, none of these new viruses, apart from HIV, has been able to spread worldwide. But the reasons why we see such outbreaks lies, in my opinion, in megacities, mass tourism, intensive livestock farming and generally too much close contact between humans and animals. Humans are penetrating more and more the habitats of wild animals, and this leads to the fact that the pathogens can jump over to the human population again and again, namely pathogens that humans do not yet know and which then have such devastating effects.”

“Of course, you can also actively change something. Reducing the contact points, for example. Live-animal markets play an important role here. And this is not only true for wild animals. When living animals of different species and origins with their different pathogen spectra meet, they will exchange them. And they also exchange them with humans. This is certainly a dangerous situation, and here you can indeed do something. The second is undoubtedly the uncontrolled trade with wild animals, and I am deliberately not saying illegal, but uncontrolled. Every wild animal has its own spectrum of germs. And if I have an exotic animal in my living room, then I also have an exotic pathogen spectrum in my living room.”

“Against these new emerging diseases or re-emerging diseases, we still operate a purely reactive hazard prevention system. Historically, this puts us at the same level as the merchant towns and territorial states of the early modern period. This is a harsh judgment, but it must be stated so clearly. Epi- and pandemics are caused by humans; for example, today by international air traffic while it was shipping traffic in former times. This means that we can prevent diseases and their spread by our actions. In the global data world of the 21st century, epidemic disease threats must be nipped in the bud, and every epidemic or pandemic must be prevented, for example, by hygiene controls in airports. And all this under the condition of maintaining the greatest possible freedom of movement, trade and cultural exchange, beforehand and continuously. So this old demand that we must not allow ourselves to be restricted in our everyday lives is something I consider to be crucial.”

“If nothing had been done, international movement of goods would have been basically random happenings. And this was to be prevented at all costs, within the framework of industrialization and the international exchange of goods. And that's why they knew how to keep the industrial regions and key regions of the world healthy and to rehabilitate them in such a way that these diseases could no longer arise or spread. Cholera still exists today, but it is being contained immediately. Plague still exists today, worldwide there are probably 4,000 cases of plague per year, but it is detected and contained immediately. We have to build a similar health care system on an international level in the 21st century. This means controlling the regions where these diseases originate and controlling the ways in which they spread. Then taking all appropriate protective and surveillance measures in places where the diseases may end up, so that they can be detected, traced immediately, and then contained. That is really where we should be heading.”