100YLA Online Conversation Series: Social Distancing – A Historical Perspective

Zoom Webinar

100 Year Lives in Asia (100YLA)

Life expectancy in Asia has increased significantly from 1955 to 2020. In many Asian societies, centenarians are still celebrated, but they are no longer a rarity. Society and government policies have not been designed around the expectation that people will live to 100. Education, career, family, financial security and many other topics will be explored in the 100YLA series to address the many changing needs people and their families have as they prepare to live longer lives.

COVID-19 has brought many consequences for young and old within their communities. The 100YLA series will discuss 100 year lives in the context of a world facing a COVID-19 future.

Kathleen Cagney, Professor of Sociology of the University of Chicago, will invite experts from Asia and the U.S. to discuss the phenomenon, implications, challenges and opportunities for an aging population in Asia.

Episode 3: Social Distancing - A Historical Perspective

How has history taught us about COVID-19? World renowned medical historian, Professor Howard Markel  and UChicago expert of social science, Dr Christopher Kindell looked back to pandemics a century ago and explored COVID-19 through the lens of history in this one-hour episode.

The experts, together with Professor Kate Cagney helped the audience understand how scientists, doctors and politicians responded to COVID-19 drawing from human history, like the 1918 Flu Pandemic and Leprosy spread in Hawaii in 1886. By outlining the similarities and differences of quarantine measures between past and present pandemics, the episode provided further insights on how the past has defined the meaning of social distancing and how it would evolve in the future. 

Check out all 100YLA episodes HERE!

Speakers:

• Professor Kathleen Cagney
  Chair of 100 Year Lives in Asia
  Professor of Sociology and the College
  The University of Chicago
• Dr Christopher Kindell
  Postdoctoral Social Sciences Teaching Fellow  
  Department of History and the College
  The University of Chicago
• Professor Howard Markel
  George E. Wantz, M.D. Distinguished Professor of the History of Medicine
  Director, Center for the History of Medicine
  Professor of Pediatrics; Psychiatry; Public Health Management and Policy; History; and English Literature and Language
  University of Michigan