Are you still doomscrolling about COVID-19?

Stop it already!

Instead of staying despaired in a pandemic-filled groundhog day moment,

let's put these past two years into perspective.

COVID-19 is unprecedented in many ways, yeah,

but people have dealt with epidemics and pandemics for thousands of years.

So how did they get through them?

And what can we learn from that past?

I'm Gustavo Ariano.

You're listening to The Times, Daily News from the LA Times.

It's Tuesday, January 18, 2022.

Last spring, my L.A. Times colleague, Jessica Roy set out to write a story about the end of COVID-19 and then the pandemic kept going.

But it has to end eventually, right?

We'll talk about that today.

And later in the episode, we'll chat with a medical historian about how diseases have changed the course of history.

Because that's what we're living through right now, folks, history.

One of my favorite quotes ever is from the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible,

and let me do my SpongeBob with thick glasses here right now.

Here it is.

There is nothing new under the sun.

So even though Omicron is doing its thing right now, this too shall pass.

That's another favorite quote of mine.

...