Although these are unprecedented times, COVID-19 isn’t humanity’s first go-round with a widespread outbreak of disease. Humans have gone through many pandemics in the past, most of which were contracted through some form of contact or interaction with animals.

But how many pandemics have we had? How bad were they? How do they compare to the COVID-19 pandemic?

The most famous pandemic of all time was the Black Death (1346-1353). The Black Death traveled from Asia to Europe, leaving total carnage in its wake. Estimates suggest that it killed somewhere between 75–200 million worldwide, including over half of Europe’s total population. It was caused by a strain of the bacteria called Yersinia pestis, which is likely extinct today and was spread by fleas on infected rodents.

In the last 100 years, the world has experienced several notable epidemics, the most costly of which was the the Spanish Flu pandemic (1918-1920), which infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide and left one-fifth of them dead. The flu’s spread and lethality was enhanced by the cramped conditions and poor wartime nutrition that many people were experiencing during World War I.

During the 20th century, tuberculosis killed approximately 100 million people. It has been around for hundreds of years, and before its discovery, TB was thought to be hereditary and had ties to vampires. The bacteria was officially discovered by Dr. Robert Koch in 1882, who proved that it was an infectious, airborne disease. During that time, TB killed one out of every seven people in the United States and Europe. In 1921, a vaccine was created. Today, there are fewer than 200,000 cases within the United States per year.

The Asian Flu (1957–1958) was first identified in China in late February 1957. It caused about two million deaths globally.Unlike COVID-19 the Asian flu spread easily among children, leading to many school closures, but was rarely fatal in children. Like COVID-19, the elderly and those with preexisting conditions were at the biggest risk of death. The economic impact of this outbreak was also high, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 15% of its value in 1957.

AIDS (1918-Present) has claimed an estimated 35 million lives since it was first identified. HIV, which is the virus that causes AIDS, likely developed from a chimpanzee virus that transferred to humans in West Africa in the 1920s. The virus made its way around the world, and AIDS was declared a pandemic by the late 20th century. Now, about 40 million people in our world today live with AIDS.

The Swine Flu pandemic (2009-2010) was caused by a new strain of H1N1 that originated in Mexico in the spring of 2009 before spreading to the rest of the world. In one year, the virus infected as many as 1.4 billion people across the globe and killed between 151,700 and 575,400 people, according to the CDC. The 2009 flu pandemic primarily affected children and young adults, and 80% of the deaths were in people younger than 65, which was unusual as the flu typically kills the elderly.

Ebola (2014-2016) ravaged West Africa between 2014 and 2016, with 28,600 reported cases and 11,325 deaths. The first case to be reported was in Guinea in December 2013, then the disease quickly spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone. Though the bulk of the cases and deaths occurred in those three countries, a smaller number of cases popped up in Nigeria, Mali, Senegal, the United States and Europe. There is no cure for Ebola, although efforts at finding a vaccine are ongoing.

Most of these epidemics were much more lethal and hard on the human body than COVID-19, but our technological and medical advancements have definitely made this an easier feat to overcome.

A vaccine for COVID-19 may take until 2022 to develop. Until that time, we should stay smart, stay healthy, and keep working together.