This historical account of the epidemics that have struck Johannesburg during its 134-year history is written with the burden of the present. On 31 December 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan, China, and shortly afterwards confirmed that a previously unknown coronavirus was the cause. The disease was labelled Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) and spread globally in the early months of 2020.