Hello Scribblers. I hope you are all staying safe and doing well this week. As you can see, hopefully, I’ve been getting back into my blogging. This whole year, 2020, has been crazy and most days I feel lost and confused. So much is happening around us that it’s not easy to know where to look and what to focus on.
Today, however, I wanted to focus on a topic that I think we can agree has absorbed our society and our world since March (even before then for some areas of the planet) I want to talk about the pandemic. And ask the question; what have we learned? I’m not a doctor and I’m not a scientist. I’m an author and I have a day job working in the nonprofit sector. What I’m getting at is I’m no expert and I have no real answers, only questions. Take what I say with a grain of salt and do your own research if you chose.
When this pandemic started everyone said it was unprecedented, that nothing like this has every happened before. But, of course, anyone who knows history will know that this has happened before, 1918 – 1919, The Spanish Flu. Here is what the CDC has to say about The Spanish Flu:
The 1918 influenza pandemic was the most severe pandemic in recent history. It was caused by an H1N1 virus with genes of avian origin. Although there is not universal consensus regarding where the virus originated, it spread worldwide during 1918-1919. In the United States, it was first identified in military personnel in spring 1918. It is estimated that about 500 million people or one-third of the world’s population became infected with this virus. The number of deaths was estimated to be at least 50 million worldwide with about 675,000 occurring in the United States.
Mortality was high in people younger than 5 years old, 20-40 years old, and 65 years and older. The high mortality in healthy people, including those in the 20-40 year age group, was a unique feature of this pandemic. While the 1918 H1N1 virus has been synthesized and evaluated, the properties that made it so devastating are not well understood. With no vaccine to protect against influenza infection and no antibiotics to treat secondary bacterial infections that can be associated with influenza infections, control efforts worldwide were limited to non-pharmaceutical interventions such as isolation, quarantine, good personal hygiene, use of disinfectants, and limitations of public gatherings, which were applied unevenly.
Learn more about the Spanish Flu here and here.
Granted much has changed over the last 100 years, however, what hasn’t changed is our attitudes. Just like in 1918-1919 people got tired of staying home, they demanded business to open, people went back to work, people went to sporting events, had parades, and celebrated various holidays in mass.
Does any of this sound familiar?
Unfortunately, this attitude is what caused the second, third, and fourth wave of the illness and more people died.
Here we are repeating history, in one of the worst possible ways.
What are we doing?
As I write this, the United Sates has confirmed 2,149,745 cases and we are reporting 117,163 deaths. It’s been four months, which if my math is correct is 29,290 deaths a month (and we are currently only half way through June). If we compare this to the Spanish Flu of 1918-1919 there were 28,125 deaths a month (for a twenty-four month period). Again, if my math is correct we have about 1,165 more deaths a month then the Spanish Flu. At this rate we are on target to have 702,960 deaths for the same twenty-four month time frame. We are out pacing the 1918 Spanish Flu.
Of course there are a lot of events that can change in the coming months, especially given the current political climate and the protests.
What have we learned?
I’m not sure. I don’t know what the best solutions are either. Sadly, while all this is happening, we are in an economic crisis caused by the pandemic and political upheaval because of the murder of several African Americans due to police brutality. These are difficult times and we are being asked to make difficult choices. I don’t have answers, only questions.
To me it feels as if we, as a society, are peeking over a precipice and I’m not sure what is going to happen next. I see history repeating itself in so many ways and I’m worried.
All I know for sure is that we need to take care of ourselves, and each other. We need to uplift each other and be kind. What we are facing may be unprecedented in our time but it’s not new to us. We will pull through, what our world looks like when all is said and done I have no idea. So, until next time, please stay safe, wear a mask (if not for you then for those around you), support each other, and practice social distancing.