Polio patients in iron lungs. New York Daily News photo

By Casey Bukro

Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists

As uncomfortable as it is to us now, the coronavirus pandemic will interest future historians as another cataclysmic eruption distorting lives and causing death around the world.

They happened before. Every generation, it seems, worries about some kind of existential threat. They are events that grab us by the throat and leave lasting impressions

The struggle against COVID-19 is described as a war likely to last 12 to 24 months.

War, whether in medical or military terms, is a good description. One of its definitions is to “state one’s intent to suppress or eradicate.” The medical community is doing its best to suppress or eradicate the coronavirus as it tries to do the same to us biologically. It’s a war against a “novel” virus, meaning it’s new and the way it acts is largely unknown.