Throughout tropical urban Latin America, yellow fever wreaked havoc. Located at sea level, Guayaquil (Ecuador) and Puerto Barrios (Guatemala) were particularly susceptible to yellow fever; yet, Ecuadorians and Guatemalans enjoyed significant success in early twentieth-century campaigns against yellow fever. Reflecting international efforts that informed, collaborated with, and at times underwrote Latin American public health campaigns, the Rockefeller Foundation (RF) sent representatives to Guatemala and Ecuador in the mid-1910s to eradicate yellow fever. While those interventions enjoyed immediate success, the long-term effects were more ambiguous. By collaborating with RF, Ecuador had all but eradicated yellow fever by 1919. In Guatemala, however, a few months after RF declared Guatemala free of yellow fever, influenza struck, likely originating from US military camps in Guatemala that RF sought to shield from yellow fever.

 Analysis of early twentieth-century yellow fever epidemics and campaigns to arrest them sheds light on COVID-19 pandemic challenges. Even as knowledge of disease etiology was evolving in Ecuador and Guatemala, most leaders accepted or at least did not publicly reject scientific medicine. In contrast, beginning with the most powerful politicians and filtering down throughout federal, state, and municipal authorities, many US leaders rejected science crucial to the campaigns against COVID-19. Similarly, in a pattern that resonates with US residents rejecting precautionary measures against COVID-19 such as wearing masks and maintaining social distance, compliance with anti-yellow fever campaigns was not always forthcoming.

在整个拉丁美洲热带城市，黄热病肆虐。位于海平面的瓜亚基尔（厄瓜多尔）和巴里奥斯港（危地马拉）特别容易感染黄热病；然而，厄瓜多尔人和危地马拉人在 20 世纪早期的黄热病运动中取得了巨大成功。洛克菲勒基金会 (RF) 在 1910 年代中期派代表前往危地马拉和厄瓜多尔根除黄热病，这反映了为拉丁美洲公共卫生运动提供信息、与之合作并有时承销的国际努力。虽然这些干预措施取得了立竿见影的成功，但长期影响却更加模糊。通过与 RF 合作，厄瓜多尔在 1919 年几乎消灭了黄热病。 然而，在危地马拉，RF 宣布危地马拉没有黄热病几个月后，流感爆发了，

 对 20 世纪早期黄热病流行病和阻止它们的运动的分析揭示了 COVID-19 大流行的挑战。尽管厄瓜多尔和危地马拉的疾病病因学知识在不断发展，但大多数领导人接受或至少没有公开拒绝科学医学。相比之下，从最有权势的政治家开始，然后渗透到联邦、州和市政当局，许多美国领导人拒绝了对对抗 COVID-19 运动至关重要的科学。同样，在美国居民拒绝戴口罩和保持社交距离等针对 COVID-19 的预防措施时产生共鸣的模式中，抗黄热病运动的遵守并不总是很快到来。