This course will analyze the COVID-19 pandemic in the context of other similar events in the history of public health and medicine. How do we understand the COVID pandemic and the differential responses to it around the globe? What is the best framework for proper understanding? Science, history, politics, culture? Special attention will be given to the state of medical science today and in the past, the understanding of ethology, transmission, and symptoms; the role of scientists, physicians, and "quacks"; the persistence and change in the forms of fear, superstition, and misinformation across time.