<p>Global retrospective human/plant epidemiology analysis exhibits a reactive cognitive development influenced by casuistic phenomena. Epidemic outbreaks of XXI century evidenced regression of the population-based approach to risk <em>prevention</em> and erosion of <em>Public Health</em> model, successful between 1950-1970. After 19 pandemics and 200 historical outbreaks, neither WHO nor public or private institutions, have not consolidated sustainable <em>preventive</em> models. Urban expansion and agricultural colonialism during the Industrial Revolution accelerated pandemic processes such as Black Death (<em>Yersinia pestis</em>), Cholera (<em>Vibrio cholerae</em>), Potato Blight (<em>Phythopthora infestans</em>) or Coffee Rust (<em>Hemileia</em> <em>vastatrix</em>). These factors contributed to the conception and application of the <em>contagion</em> and <em>prevention</em> principles by Snow/1854 or de Bary/1857, in the hygienism of Proust/1873, and the sanitation of Marshall/1882, before the <em>etiological</em> principle developed by Pasteur/1862 and Koch/1882. The contemporary scientific revolutions strengthened the reductionist hospital vision, with emphasis on cure as a principle, and on <em>health</em> privatization as a business strategy. The central epidemiology paradigm’s <em>population</em> is limited to the <em>individual-patient</em> or <em>plant-damage</em>. The COVID-19 cases <em>curve</em> (‘<em>epidemic wave</em>’) is not inherent to <em>preventive</em> epidemiology, ‘<em>flattening’</em> lacks infectious basis, ‘<em>healthy distance</em>’ or ‘<em>confinement’</em> are not sustainable mitigation strategies. The immunological emphasis did not generate the expected individual protection and ‘<em>herd immunity</em>’. Instead, it exacerbated the pharmaceutical-mercantilized vaccine ‘race’ to new variants; geopolitical protectionism; and unequal distribution of immunologicals. The SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pandemic evidenced the rational epidemiological framework deterioration; the absence of <em>Surveillance Systems</em> that articulate clinical detection and viral variants with community risks follow-up, enhanced with genomic and digital technology; the systematic failure of <em>Public Health Systems</em>; and the absence of a <em>pansystemic model</em> to integrate <em>regional preventive models</em>. Maximum case-fatality reduction from 15.2% in 2020 to 2.5 world average 2021, suggests an endemic transitional process. Worldwide reproduction rates Rt > 1 are consistent with more transmissible variants, such as Delta and Omicron, as sublethal survival ability of the virus. The pandemic has not been successfully intervened and its <em>momentum</em> is determined by biological attributes inherent to SARS-CoV-2.</p>