With quarantines in effect worldwide, the obvious question is: When will it end? An example from history shows why we shouldn't end lockdown too soon.

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With closures and quarantines worldwide, many are beginning to wonder: What happens when cases of coronavirus start to decline? And when can we go back to normal?

By now, you’re familiar with the phrase "flatten the curve."

As the pandemic of 1918 spread across the United States, some cities, like Philadelphia, carried on as normal and saw a spike in cases.

Others, like St. Louis, closed businesses and schools and avoided that spike. But in 1918, another city presented another lesson that showed the dangers of lifting quarantine too soon.

On the question of when coronavirus quarantines should come to an end, what happened to the city of Denver, Colorado a century ago could serve as a warning.