The problem with this pandemic crisis is that it’s gone on way too long. The public’s attention span withers as they try to cope with numbers like 70,000 new cases per day, a million worldwide. We are worn down by the relentless phrases of virus: 40,000 new cases, a surge here, a spike there. But tell me who can we complain to? Who can take the blame for this?
Bob Kalish observes life from a placid place on the island of Arrowsic (motto: You’re not in Georgetown yet). You can reach him at bobkalish@gmail.com.
This is a problem that encompasses the entire world, not just the USA. Usually when the world unites it’s called the Olympics. But those images of fine-tuned athletes don’t match the pandemic we see on TV. Who can forget the images of the empty piazzas in Florence, abandoned squares in Paris, even the lovely Taj Mahal appearing orderly and uncrowded.
Oh, the humanity: the tribes of the world united in fear.
In search of something positive to say about this crisis, I turn to history. For example, following the epidemic of bubonic plague in Europe there was the Renaissance, a flowering of new ideas and the growth of the arts. Historically there have been other ravages from microbes in which nature has cleaned house by destroying whole species.
Some pandemics changed the way people went about their daily lives from then on. According to the History Channel, three of the deadliest pandemics were caused by one bacterium, yersinia pestis, which landed in Constantinople around 564 and spread to the rest of the world, killing an estimated 30 to 50 million. This was well before Dr. Fauchi tried his best to reassure us, at a time in human history before doctors made house calls. A few hundred years later came the bubonic plague, also called the Black Death, which killed an estimated 200 million people in just four years and expanded its range to wreak havoc in the New World, almost wiping out entire populations of native folk.
In Venice in the 14th century, officials discovered the spread of bubonic plague could be slowed by isolating sailors arriving with the disease. Venetian officials decided to keep newly arrived sailors in isolation until they could prove they weren’t sick. At first, sailors were held on their ships for 30 days, which became known in Venetian law as a trentino. As time went on, the Venetians increased the forced isolation to 40 days or a quarantino. Sound familiar? According to the Centers for Disease Control, an epidemic is limited to one country or region. When an outbreak expands across its original boundary it is called a pandemic.
Whatever it is called, the population is fed up with face masks, gloves, dull Saturday nights. An attack by massive numbers of microbes seems to be a part of a natural cycle like the hordes of locusts that wipe out grain when they feel like it. Take heart, like everything else in the universe, this pandemic won’t last forever.
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