We'll Know By Summer

“How were you affected by the 1918 Swine Flu epidemic?”

After returning to the classroom in 1979 to teach history, one of the first assignments I gave was for students to find someone 70 years old or older and ask a series of questions. Interview subjects would have been born in 1909 or earlier and, if they lived in New England, would almost certainly have known people who died in that plague. Its American epicenter was Fort Devens in central Massachusetts.

It was called "Camp Devens" then.

About 850 soldiers died there in 1918 after it spread from Commonwealth Pier in Boston where the first recorded outbreak seems to have occurred according to the New England Historical Society. The American version of the epidemic eventually killed 675,000 Americans and perhaps 100 million worldwide. Even more surprising was that the most vulnerable demographic was young adults — about 10% died globally.

The 1918 virus seems to have been the worst plague in history.

In last week’s column "Between Now and November" on the presidential campaign I added a paragraph at the end about what might threaten President Trump’s biggest advantage — our strong economy. I suggested the Corona Virus, now called Covid19, might be that threat. After only a week, it’s virtually certain. At this writing (Monday midday), the stock market and bond market are both crashing. Traveling in India, President Trump claimed the virus is a short-term problem that won’t have a lasting effect on the world economy. “I think it’s a problem that’s going to go away,” he said — this according to zerohedge.com which has become my go-to site on the virus.

Trump has said a lot of stupid things, but I believe that statement will come back to haunt him.

Epidemiologists have more questions than answers about this newest plague and that’s because China, where it originated, is a closed society with a government which controls information. It’s lying about what has been going on. Did Covid19 originate when Chinese gourmets ate bat soup as some suggest? Or, did it escape from a bioweapons lab in Wuhan as others suggest? We don’t know.

People exposed to the virus have been quarantined for 14 days to see if they show symptoms, but reports the past few days indicate that quarantine should be extended because some victims have gone 27 days before symptoms manifest. Can the virus be contained? Doubts are rising as fast as the virus is spreading — at lightening speed. Today (Monday mid afternoon) the World Health Organization is announcing that the virus is not yet pandemic — but we all kind of know it is, right? Said WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus today: “Does this virus have pandemic potential? Absolutely. Are we there yet? From our assessment not yet.”

South Korean at Jerusalem's Wailing Wall

How soon will it affect us here in America? Yesterday I read a report that South Korean Catholics who were visiting crowded holy sites in Israel returned home and tested positive for the virus. Israel then announced it would ban South Korean tourists. I texted the article to my sister and brother-in-law who were on tour visiting those crowded holy sites in Israel and they hadn’t heard anything about it. Then I waited to hear if they were allowed to board their flight from Tel Aviv to Newark, NJ. They told me tourists with whom they were traveling were going on to Jordan and were subjected to health checks at the border. This morning I learned they landed in Newark and were awaiting a flight to Boston.

Yeah, it’s affecting us here and it’s only the beginning.

China’s economy is tanking. Car sales have dropped 92% for February. As of February 13, China has virtually stopped importing crude oil. Tankers are backed up offshore. Since China makes so many products we buy including iPhones, we’re bound to be strongly affected here in America. The supply chain of vital components for products manufactured here in the USA will be slowing down and cut off as well. Japan may cancel the Olympics scheduled this summer. The Epoch Times this morning (Tuesday) quoted Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley:“80 percent of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients are produced abroad, the majority in China and India.”

We know, even if Trump doesn’t, there will be economic turmoil worldwide, but we don’t know yet how many of us will die. We in the USA and Europe are better equipped to treat people than third-world countries in Africa so our survivability rate is likely to be better. It seems that a percentage of those who become infected will die, but what is that percentage? We just don’t know because the Chinese Communist Party controls the flow of vital information on Covid19 and spins it for its own political purposes.

Eventually I had to drop the Swine Flu question from the elderly interviews as those old enough to remember it died off. We can only hope Covid19 doesn’t kill as many of us as that plague did a century ago. It’s likely we will know by summer.