[As I draft this
series in late March, the Covid-19 pandemic continues to devastate the United
States and the world. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of prior
epidemics, leading up to a weekend post that I’ll wait to draft until we know
more about where things stand in early May.]
On the lessons
we can learn from a century-old global pandemic.
This
piece for my Saturday
Evening Post Considering History
column features much of what I would want to say about the echoes between the
influenza pandemic (which I won’t call the Spanish Flu for reasons detailed in
the piece) and our current unfolding global health crisis, and more exactly
what we can learn (in both cautionary and inspiring ways) from that historical
moment. So I’ll ask you to check that out if you would, and will just add one
further thought here.
I don’t know
that I said this clearly enough in that piece, but the Philadelphia parade
which jump-started the epidemic in late September 1918 took place after the
epidemic seemed to have quieted down a bit over the summer. Yes, there had been
news of recent outbreaks on military bases, but it might have seemed that those
were isolated or contained. So as much as I hate to say this (and believe me, I
really hate to say it), it seems clear that one lesson from 1918 is that we
will have to remain vigilant, and quite possibly practice frequent social
distancing, well into the fall. As the Dad to two sons who have absolutely
hated missing school this spring, and for many other reasons as well, that thought
is a deeply unhappy one for me. But it’s yet another lesson we have to be
willing to take from the influenza epidemic.
Next epidemic
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other thoughts on this epidemic or any prior ones?
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