It’s treatable now with antibiotics, though there have been some resistant strands.
We’re much more effective at both treating, and identifying the source. But I do think we have forgotten how to quarantine or lost the will to. We didn’t do so good with SARS.
I beg to differ.
SARS was quite infectious, and had it escaped our control measures, it could have been devastating. Public health officials managed to stop it through rigorous isolation and infection control measures. Had SARS broken out in a different area of the world--like in a refugee camp somewhere, where there are no modern medical facilities--the story might have been different.
We know far better how to control the spread of disease than they did back during the plague pandemics.