This Pandemic Is Teaching Us That We Can Change
By: Vanessa Robinson
Tags: Culture, Politics, Health, History, Pandemic

“Mr. Jones used to live there.”

“The Kaminski kids used to play on this corner. Joe Blum used to stay next door.”

Or maybe, it was someone in your family. Maybe it was your entire family.

A new problem–what to do for the children made orphans by the Spanish influenza epidemic–is facing Washington today. —The Washington Times, October 19, 1918.

In addition to the deaths from the Spanish flu, even more Americans had died in the war that had just ended that November of 1918. It was a world devastated by twin curses: World War I and plague.

The history books tell only part of the story.

When the plague was over, human beings picked themselves up and kept going. It released something in them, though.

There’s a reason that the 1920s are called the “Roaring Twenties.” The history books say that it was because of new technologies, movies, planes, automobiles, new clothes (no corset!), and a break with tradition.

These all would have had a role, but it's most likely because a cloud of death had passed overhead (much like the Angel of Death, the one sent by God to kill the firstborn in Exodus 12:23 in the Bible) and people on Earth, aware of their narrow escape, let loose. They had been passed over. They were sad, but they had a life to live. They would have to live it for those who had passed away.

They had survived.

In the midst of a tragedy, it does feel as if the earth and life as we know it is over. Time stops. The pain of loss makes everything else trivial and meaningless. We realize that which was so important just days ago means nothing at all. Millions of us, for example, were overworked just a few months ago. Now? We’re unemployed.

This pandemic is different.

COVID-9 is a more insidious horror. It’s extremely contagious, and fools many into thinking that it’s “just like the flu.” But it’s worse.

The Spanish flu generally killed pretty quickly — that alone could help stop some of it’s spread. After all, if one died in a fast fashion, the chance of spreading the infection would’ve been lower.

Even so, it is conservatively estimated that as many as 500 million worldwide were infected, and approximately 50 million died from 1918 to 1920. There was no vaccine.

It is estimated that 20 million died in World War I. The totality is astounding.

Then, as now, politicians tried to stop medical professionals from warning the public:

In anticipation of Philadelphia’s “Liberty Loan March” in September, doctors tried to use the press to warn citizens that it was unsafe. Yet city newspaper editors refused to run articles or print doctors’ letters about their concerns.

The citizens of Philadelphia paid for this by dying more than in any other city in the nation. The Spanish flu killed 12,191 people in four weeks in that one panic-stricken city. Even today, Philadelphia remembers — because their descendants have passed on their stories.

But an un-masked, superspreader of the coronavirus can walk around for a week or two spreading the virus to others before becoming ill. They won’t even know it.

Ironically, the rules to help keep people alive in 1918 are the same as today:

To Prevent Influenza, Illustrated Current News, October 18, 1918

National Library of Medicine #A108877

But, there was an aftermath.

We will survive.

The question is: How will we survive? The latest news is that a vaccine appears to be on the horizon.

University of Oxford vaccine is safe and induces early immune reaction, early results suggest.

Since the pandemic began, over 600,000 people have died. This vaccine trial is just one of 23 taking place all over the world, and so this is a good start. Just like the people in 1920, in 2020 we have to think about how we will live for the rest of our lives. What has changed? What should change?

Many jobs do not require your presence in the office. We already knew that, but there was much resistance to change. And many managers want to look at your face. It’s not always a bad thing. But for a lot of us, it’s unnecessary. We need to be cleaner. Why are our subways and public bathrooms filthy? Friends and family told me of their travels to Japan, Singapore, and other like-minded places. The airports and streets were squeaky clean. Why isn’t it a priority here? We should incorporate more cleanliness. We are learning to social distance. AND, we’re relying on technology more. Is that good or bad? I miss my hugs, though. We’ve put people in prisons who have no business being there. We’re now releasing people who were put behind bars for marijuana sales, something that one can buy from the store downtown. Some of us are learning (or should learn) to change our mindset from individualism to a culture that thinks more about one's neighbor. Selfishness doesn’t work in a pandemic. The coronavirus, if it was a person, loves selfishness. It thrives on it. We have a lot of homeless people here, but steps have been taken to mitigate this evil in some of our cities. They’re putting them into hotel rooms during the lockdown. But we don’t normally do this. When I asked an international traveler about this phenomenon, she said she didn’t even see them in certain cities.

What this pandemic is teaching us is that we can change. We just have to have the will.

We are still in the midst of the pandemic.

Our future is still uncertain, but that was always the case even before the pandemic. We must stay strong. We must fight our way through these divisions in our country. Not to be too pollyanna-ish, but there is no way to win, to survive, without merging our strengths along with our scientific and medical knowledge.

The politics of our time is poisonous, even deadly — this we have to admit. It’s contaminating us all. And, as we can see, it’s confirmed by the fact that people are dying needlessly.

And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.~ Mark 3:25 King James Version

This was as true when it was written around AD 65–75 in the Greek as it is today.

We must live together.

Life will change. We will have to adapt.

Because our lives should change in the midst of illness.