Over the last several hundred years, financial panics have repeatedly caused severe economic turmoil. For example, there were financial panics every 10 to 20 years in the late 1700s, 1800s, and early 1900s, many of which resulted in severe recessions.

Over her 34-year nursing career Martha Kuhl, a pediatric oncology nurse at U.C.S.F. Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland in California, has seen her patient load more than double. She recalls one night shift when she was the lone nurse on duty with five patients. “These are all babies that can’t breathe,” she says. “I felt okay at four” but that last patient “sort of tipped it over the edge where I felt unsafe in being able to handle all of these patients.”