But for many thousands of years, there was nothing anyone could do about disease. The disease comes to the community, people die, the disease goes away. Life goes on.
And people should keep in mind that in the past (ex. 14th century Black Death) people were subsistence level farmers, generally malnourished, no clean water, no aspirin for fevers, no great source of warmth in the winter, no great source of cooling in the summer. Getting sick was bad. You could easily die. And with the Black Death one third of Europe did die.
It's different today. In a worst case scenario, “lots” of people die and the demographic needle barely moves. Because the people who die during pandemics are overwhelmingly in their 80s. They were going to die soon anyway. I'm not being heartless, I'm just stating facts.
The panic and “mandatory steps” that our government pulled was far more devastating than COVID. And that will be true next time also. I do not support “drastic measures” by government because of disease. I don't totally oppose vaccines (polio vaccine was good) but I really do not think that human civilization requires vaccines to survive. They should always be optional.
Then there was Sweating Sickness that came and went several times starting in the late 1400’s and ending around 1555.
Then it died out and they are still no positive what it was today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweating_sickness