https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/larry-brilliant-helped-to-eradicate-smallpox-and-he-has-advice-for-covid-19/

When a virus that no one has ever seen before spreads across the globe in mere months, science must race to find answers to some very hard questions: How fast will COVID-19 proliferate? How many will get sick? Can our health systems withstand the onslaught of this new illness? Will there be a vaccine anytime soon? As we wait for those answers, many of us sit and watch and read the news—at a social distance, it is hoped—without knowing exactly what to do or what the near future will hold.

This moment may feel like it is without precedent, but COVID-19 is only the latest pandemic. And while past global disease outbreaks have involved other viruses with different patterns of transmission, how the world community came together to deal with them at the time can offer some relevant lessons today.