A pandemic on the scale of what a novel virus like SARS-CoV-2 could end up being has not occurred since the influenza pandemic of 1918 that took the lives of some 50 million or more people worldwide. Since few of us were around then, and given medical advances in the form of preventative vaccines and antiviral medications since that time, it’s hard for us to imagine that a ‘flu-like’ illness could be so destructive,” explains Dr. Joseph M. Pierre, health sciences clinical professor of psychiatry at University of California, Los Angeles.