When I was 9 or 10, mom disrupted summer vacation after learning about several polio cases, including my cousin and a neighbor kid. She went into protective mode. My brother and I could play outside only in our yard. Dad could take us to the park, but not near others.
When school started, mom kept us home temporarily. A school officer called, saying we needed an education. Mom said we couldn’t learn if we had to live in an iron lung contraption to breathe. A few days later, with no new cases reported, she relented.
My cousin left the hospital with a limp. The neighbor kid couldn’t raise his arms above his head. They were lucky. Others infected by the poliovirus were confined to a wheelchair or died. Jonas Salk at the University of Pittsburgh near our house announced a poliovirus vaccine a year or two later. Mom probably hadn’t heard the word “epidemiology,” but her instincts were right.
I remember that stay-at-home summer as I stay at home this summer and worry about friends and family during the coronavirus pandemic. For six months President Donald Trump, backed by his Republican sycophants, has lied to and misled us about the virus, while showing no empathy for victims of the COVID-19 disease the virus causes. After declaring war on the virus in March, he deserted us.
Trump kicked responsibility to the states and local governments, which took over virus testing. Most also imposed extraordinary measures to separate people from one another to stop the virus spread, including closing businesses temporarily. Trump ignored the medical experts. He pushed the states, particularly GOP governors, to reopen their economies prematurely to help get himself reelected. As the experts had warned, it backfired.
Thanks partly to Trump, the U.S. has far more reported COVID-19 cases and deaths than any other country – about 4.3 million cases and 150,000 deaths and rising. It took 100 days to reach the first million cases and only 15 days to go from 3 million to 4 million. Texas has been among the hardest hit. Health care workers in South Texas said last week they were so overwhelmed they may have to decide who they can help and who to send home to die, Business Insider reported. Expect this to happen in a third-world country run by a loony dictator, not the United States.
