Pandemic Precedence

The Colonel and the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda are hunkered down in social isolation on the Colonel's vast land holdings here at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere.

The current pandemic has nothing to do with that.

They've been "isolated" for 13 years.

Egeebeegee, the unincorporated capital of the Tallahatchie Republic (a virtual government founded tongue-in-cheek and hand-on-wallet), was established here in North Central Mississippi in March of 2007.  The Colonel and his bride were looking for a place to put down roots after wandering rootless for the first half century of their lives.  They found it quite by accident.  A turn down a lonely narrow road led them to a piece of land that immediately felt like home.  Nowhere else on the globe had felt like that in the previous half century. 

The road on which Egeebeegee perches is not a thoroughfare to or from anywhere.  From his rocking chair on the front porch of the Big House, the Colonel might count no more than a half-dozen vehicles passing by on a hours long afternoon rock.  Rush hour is two pickups, a tractor, and a four-wheeler in a two hour stretch.

With the foregoing as preamble, the Colonel is acutely aware that he is one of the most fortunate men on the planet.  "Quarantine" ain't a hardship for him.

The rest of humanity has the Colonel's sympathy. This viral pandemic is going to be hard on the rest of you.

But..., the Colonel promises you, our nation will weather this storm.

Let's put it in perspective, shall we?

The seminal event of the lives of those alive at the beginning of the last century was the First World War.  Initially confined primarily to European treaty entanglements, that war quickly spun out of control and then collapsed into a trench-work black hole that drew the rest of the world into its gravity well.  By the time the United States joined the fight in earnest, the cream of a European generation had been lost in three years of horror.  

The United States sent a three-million man expeditionary force to France; more than triple the deployment of forces in the Desert Storm drive-by, and far, far larger still than any deployment of force since 9/11.     

And then, when the horror and sacrifice seemed it could plumb no further depths, a particularly virulent strain of influenza broke out.

Historians call it the "Spanish Flu," but it didn't originate in Spain.  It just so happened that the only nation that didn't censure news of the epidemic, that manifested itself with the most prevalence on the battlefield, was Spain; and because the Spanish press was the primary reportage of the outbreak, the virus became the "Spanish Flu."

Many historians and epidemiologists now believe the virus took hold originally in crowded Army camps in the United States and then was transported by American soldiers to the trenches in France.  

Much is being made about the fact that there is "much we don't know yet" about the current virus -- COVID-19 (COrona VIrus strain D -- first identified in 2019).  Even though we are indeed playing catch-up in our attempts to contain, treat, and immunize against COVID-19, we are light years ahead of where the world was in 1918 dealing with the Spanish Flu pandemic.

First of all, medical science in 1918 did not know what caused influenza.  It was still believed to be a bacterial -- vice viral -- infection.

In fact, in 1918, scientists had only just identified a bacterial infection in the lungs of influenza victims that they attributed as the cause of the disease.  It wasn't until just before World War Two, that the virus that causes the flu was identified.  For centuries prior to the Twentieth Century, the accepted science was that influenza was caused by the influence of things other than germs -- the word "influenza" is Italian for "influence," because Renaissance scientists attributed outbreaks of the disease to the influence of astronomical events such as alignment of planets.    

The Colonel kids thee not.

The particularly virulent strain of influenza that swept the world -- by definition, a pandemic -- in 1918/1919 killed tens of millions across the globe.  The official death toll in the United States was 650 thousand.  When you consider the decentralized nature, and lack of uniformity in reporting and record-keeping 100 years ago, the actual mortality numbers are likely much higher. 

The population of the United States in 1918 was just north of 100 million souls.  It is now north of 330 million.  The Colonel will allow you to do the math...  

The Colonel's intent is not to scare or incite panic.  Panic, although understandable, is unreasonable.  

There is ample reason for reason.

We are in so much better of a position to fight and defeat COVID-19 (early stumbles and bumbles in testing notwithstanding) than we have ever been in any other viral outbreak.  The speed at which we have been able to isolate and discern the make-up of this virus (thanks to super-computers) is, to use a word far too much in use today, unprecedented.  

To our Federal government's credit, it has engaged the incredible resources and capabilities of the commercial sector, and gotten out of their way.      

To be sure, this is a generation-defining crisis; much more so than the misnamed and fecklessly fought (strategically) "Global War on Terror."  The past two decades have been a walk in the park for the vast majority of Americans -- even given the economic hardships suffered during so-called "Great Recession."  Only a fraction of a percent of the American population has had to make any serious sacrifice over the last twenty years.

Get ready to sacrifice, America.

Sacrifice builds character. We will come out of this stronger.

If nothing else, this will help us to identify those on whom we can count (and not count) in a future real, existential, crisis.