As the 20th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks rolls around, there will be plenty of memorial events for both the nearly 3,000 victims and the heroic people who tried to save them. It is right that we should honor them.

We have always memorialized the casualties of our many wars and the heroes who fought them on our behalf. We all grew up with “Remember Pearl Harbor” and the countless parades on Veterans Day, as well as the solemn graveside wreath-layings and speeches every Memorial Day. Over the course of the 20th century, we mourned the losses of the 622,652 parents, children, friends and relatives in these wars.

Since early 2020, the United States has been engaged with a more deadly enemy than all of the wars of the last century combined. COVID has killed 631,500 people in just over 18 months in America. Yet we are not united in the fight against this murderous disease and you have to wonder why.

Smallpox was a deadly disease, a nasty enemy that ravaged the world for centuries, and killed thousands of people in the US during 20th century. Due to the creation of a vaccine by Edward Jenner in 1796, and further development of later vaccines, this deadly enemy was eventually eradicated in this country by 1952, in Europe by 1953 and by 1980 the world was declared free of this thousand-year-old scourge. This vaccine was the first successful vaccine ever developed.

Polio was another terrible disease that recurred annually in warm weather, killing and debilitating thousands of people each year. Many doctors and scientists worked on trying to find a vaccine to stop these outbreaks. Finally, in the 1950s, two doctors, Salk and Sabin, developed vaccines. Their research was aided by the March of Dimes program set up by FDR in 1938. With great relief, people all over America celebrated these vaccines. Mass vaccination sites were set up across the U.S. and other countries, resulting in the eradication of polio in the United States by 1979 and most of the rest of the world by 1996.

Perhaps if we had remembered the victories won in hospitals and research labs as we constantly have those on the battlefield, we would have been more prepared for the arrival of the COVID. If we had continued to believe the time-tested scientific processes, and been taught about those heroes, who repeatedly and successfully fought multiple diseases, there would have been less room in our heads for misinformation.

If we had listened to the medical experts, instead of clueless celebrities like a former Playboy bunny, and medically ignorant political pundits, we would have taken the precautions they recommended. We might not have overwhelmed our hospitals and exhausted our medical personal. We would be closer to defeating this virus. America did not have to fail to protect its people. We had the resources to help ourselves and the rest of the world, but we squandered time, money and lives to protect the egos of politicians and funnel money into the pockets of corporations.

To this day, many are more willing to try anything but the carefully developed vaccines available to them. They never seem to connect that the politicians and celebrities who promote these “cures” often have financial stakes in the sales of these products. A hundred years ago, before the great medical advances of the 20th century, being this gullible and believing every snake oil salesman who came along might be understandable. In the 21st century there is no excuse but a failure to learn and remember.

Susan Chichetto lives in Bath.

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