Article content This pandemic has come at what is, simultaneously, the best and worst time for a pandemic to happen. Why it was the best time is obviously because it happened in the most modern of times, in which the once scientifically impossible became something that was possible. We apologize, but this video has failed to load. Try refreshing your browser. Mandryk: We all need a better approach for the post-COVID-19 world Back to video Finding several vaccines to combat the novel coronavirus at 95-per-cent efficiency was truly a modern miracle of which those who suffered the black plague from 1347 to 1351 or the Spanish flu of 1918 could only dream. We have managed to limit the worldwide death toll to less than 4 million compared with 50 million who died from the Spanish flu and 25 million deaths in Europe from the bubonic plague.