Letter to the Editor: Learn From Past Epidemics and Protect Yourself From Danger of Coronavirus

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Dominating the headlines worldwide is the rapid spread of the deadly coronavirus, COVID-19.

What began a few weeks ago in distant Wuhan, China, is now endangering the globe.

Just 90 miles to the north, both the University of Washington and Seattle University have suspended regular classroom instruction, disrupting the lives of tens of thousands of students and faculty. For the next several weeks at least, all learning will be by internet only.

The travel and leisure industries have been devastated. The German airline giant Lufthansa has halved its scheduled flights indefinitely. The Musee du Louvre in Paris, the world’s greatest art gallery, has padlocked its portals. The Piazza San Marco in Venice, usually swarming with tourists, is silent.

The public release of the latest James Bond thriller, appropriately named “No Time to Die,” has been postponed for 007 months, as cinemas worldwide darken their screens and shutter their doors.

It is now likely that Japan will abort the Olympic Games slated for late July in Tokyo, which would be the first such cancellation since World War II. Ironically, the Games of the XII Olympiad, scheduled for 1940, would also have been held in Tokyo.

No one can predict with precision the severity of this crisis. But there should be a general awareness of how severe such pandemics can be.

In 1665, the bubonic plague, a bacterium borne by rats and fleas, decimated the European continent, slaughtering millions. In London, then a city of 400 thousand, nearly 100 thousand perished. Particularly noxious were the neighborhoods nearest to the River Thames, where carts laden with corpses trundled day and night through the streets, carrying off the carnage of the Black Death.

Daniel Defoe, the author of “Robinson Crusoe,” also penned “A Journal of the Plague Year,” a riveting account of the London calamity. Wrote Defoe: “Reflect duly upon the Terrors of the Time. It was not like appearing in the Head of an Army, but it was charging Death itself on his pale Horse. To stay indeed was to die.”



Even worse was the much more recent Spanish flu epidemic of 1918. Four years of world war had left hundreds of millions bereft of proper sustenance, physically savaged and spiritually forlorn. Influenza cut through this populace like a cleaver, killing perhaps 50 million. 

Will the current challenge be equally bad?  Probably not, but until specific therapies become available, it will be plenty bad enough.

So what can be done now?  Locally, all government buildings, post offices and public libraries should be equipped with hand sanitizers. Helpful as well would be the widespread dissemination of informative pamphlets.

Finally, all individuals should thoroughly and frequently scrub their hands and cover their coughs.

These basic steps are as simple and common as anything can be, but they can save your life.

 

Joseph Tipler

Centralia