Yes, It Has Been Worse, And It REALLY Sucked

I had to chide a friend on Facebook because he kept trying to make folks feel -- OK, "better" is not the right word, but perhaps have a better perspective -- of the current world pandemic.

He'd just post random snippets: Two percent of the nation's population died in the Civil War.  A quarter of Europe died in the Black Death.

And so on. So, I asked him, "Are you saying don't sweat it if less than 1 percent of the population dies now? "

He insisted not, but still, his statements lacked context. I like to tell folks this is why you leave the writing of irony to professionals.

And we really have had some jerks imply that, sure, a 1 percent death rate (which would be 3 million Americans) would be sort of acceptable if it meant saving the economy.  The idiot lieutenant governor of Texas actually said old folk, who are rated most vulnerable to Covid-19, would certainly be willing to take a greater chance on dying if it means re-starting the economy sooner for their grandchildren.

No clue on whether he discussed this with his mother.

This quickly morphed into old folks being asked to die for the Dow.

Pat Bagley from the Salt Lake Tribune on one
method of slowing the pandemic.

Needless to say, as a 71-year-old member of that more susceptible class, I decline the honor of saving the economy.  And now I read that Trump is saying he'll consider it a victory if only 100,000 of us die, which I guess is an improvement.

One suspects he will try to claim that, but for his work, it would have been worse. I like to think that, but for his lollygagging and happy talk in January, or even his slacking off last year when he was clearly warned of critical deficiencies in our national preparations, we might be in much better shape now.

That said, the hard truth is that there really have been vastly worse disasters right here in this country, and world-wide even more.  More than half a million Americans died in the 1918 misnamed Spanish Flu (should be the Fort Riley, Kansas, flu). Nations do recover, although what they look like is never known until later and isn't always nice.

Interestingly, memories of such things are not really big.  I just watched an episode of the PBS Program "The American Experience" on the 1918 flu that said the process of forgetting it began almost immediately.  It wasn't anything intentional.  No books were burned or papers censored. People just didn't want to talk about it.  Horror is never fun.

Of a similar nature was the journal of the Great Depression years kept by one farmer who almost destroyed it because such a terrible time didn't deserve to be remembered.  Fortunately it was saved -- I can highly recommend "The Worst Hard Time" by Timothy Egan, which uses it and much else, to tell the story of the Dust Bowl.

How bad was that?  The title tells it. Never mind flu, just taking a breath of the dust-laden air could kill you.

The New York Times ran a story the other day mentioning that Samual Pepys (pronounced "peeps") described the Great Plague of 1665-1666, so I got out my copy to read up.

Wow.

Pepys was a British government official -- head of the navy, in fact -- who kept an amazing diary for almost 10 years, from 1660 to 1669, when his eyesight failed.  His diary covers several critical historical events and he was a very dedicated historian, writing much daily, in great detail.  His diary is a goldmine for anyone who wonders "what was life really like back then?"

His description of the plague is riveting. 

Thousand dying every week just in London.  People were ordered to "social distance" by staying home, and many feared to go out anyway. Then as now, nobody knew of any cure.

Plague doctor. The beak on the mask
held herbs to keep the disease away.

On Aug. 10, 1665, Pepys notes that he re-wrote his will. "And an odd story of Alderman Bence's stumbling at night over a dead corps (sic) in the street, and going home and telling his wife, and she at the fright, being with child, fell sicke and died of the plague."

On Aug. 28 he is "Up and being ready I out ... having not been for some days in the streets; but now few people I see, and those looking like people that had taken leave of the world."

On the 30th he notes "But Lord! How everybody's looks and discourse in the streets is of death and nothing else, and few people going up and down, that the towne (sic) is like a place distressed and forsaken."

By Sept. 16 all of London was a ghost town.

"Thence I walked to the Tower; but Lord! how empty the streets are and melancholy, so many poor sick people in the streets full of sores; and so many sad stories overheard as I walk, everybody talking of this dead, and that man sick, and so many in this place, and so many in that. They tell me that, in Westminster, there is never a physician and but one apothecary, all being dead, but there are great hopes of great decrease this week: God send it!"

Sound familiar?

Samuel Pepys

And then in September of 1666 the Great Fire of London struck.  By then 200,000 people had died of plague.  I see some  speculation that the fire, which destroyed most of central London, helped stop the plague by killing all the rats and fleas. Every cloud has its silver lining, I guess.

That has to be seen as an unintentional byproduct, however, and I sincerely hope no Texas government officials are considering that method of stoping the current pandemic. It would boost the building trades, it is true, but still, let's not.

You can download the diary of Samuel Pepys for free from Project Gutenberg (click here.)

The diary also has its own web site so you can read whatever you want, or just "today in Samuel Pepys Diary" at this site (click.)

I can strongly recommend "The Worst Hard Time" by Timothy Egan.  You can find used copies for essentially the price of postage at Abebooks.com.

You can watch the PBS video of the 1918 influenza here (click.)