Pandemic Quotes (2 quotes)
Pestilences of many sorts have brought death and misery to mankind throughout history. Over the last 100 years most of these plagues have been brought under control; the black death, cholera, yellow fever, typhus, and smallpox no longer rage unchecked every few years. But there is one disease that continues to flourish and cause pandemics that sweep around the world periodically without restraint by modern medical science: the last of the great plagues is influenza.
In Preface, Influenza: The Last Great Plague: An Unfinished Story of Discovery (1977), x.
While we have faced challenges before, this one is different. This time we join with all nations across the globe in a common endeavour, using the great advances of science and our instinctive compassion to heal. We will succeed—and that success will belong to every one of us.
Televised address (5 Apr 2020), after outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
