LETTER TO THE EDITOR:
Dear Editor: In your March 26 edition, columnist
Wyatt Emmerich decried the "Global Panic Attack" accompanying the Coronavirus pandemic. His point was that the economy-collapsing measures taken to control the virus may lead to more deaths than the virus itself. He may be right, but I suspect he is not. We will be able to find out if he is right, because Sweden is not taking any extraordinary measures to control the virus. Their theory is that if everyone is exposed, it will be over in a hurry. We shall see.
Near the end of his article, Mr. Emmerich stated that, "Society didn't grind to a halt during the polio epidemics, or diphtheria, or smallpox, or yellow fever, or malaria, tuberculosis or even the Spanish flu." This statement is a tad too broad. The Spanish flu was a lot worse than necessary because 1918's warring powers downplayed its effects in order to keep morale up.
People have known for a long time what causes malaria. Since one is as vulnerable at home, as at work, there is little reason to change one's routine for a malaria epidemic. For people over 5 years old, the malaria death rate is about 8 per 100,000 cases -- another reason not to shut down the economy.
Until the late 19th century, no one knew what caused tuberculosis. Once it was discovered that it was an infectious disease transmitted from one person to another, governments began packing off the sufferers to sanitariums, and isolating them from the rest of society.
A smallpox vaccine was developed in the late 18th century, but was not widely used until the mid-20th century. The last major outbreak of the disease in the U.S. occurred in Boston in 1901 and lasted until 1903; there was a 17 percent death rate. I suspect that the city of Boston was keeping a very low profile during the three years of the epidemic, but there was no need to shut down the economy since smallpox is infectious only after the fever develops. Like tuberculosis, you quarantine the infected person, not the rest of society. The same is true of diphtheria.
Polio was a little different. Nobody knew what caused it, but it seemed more prevalent in the summertime, causing some to blame swimming pools as a source of the disease. We were all a little worried, but not enough to forgo summer visits to the swimming pool. Life went on as usual, and some people lost in the polio lottery.
In the 19th century, the cause of yellow fever was unknown. Down on the coast, where yellow fever was an annual visitor, life may have gone on as usual, but not up here where it was a stranger (if the Bette Davis movie "Jezebel" has any basis in fact, the fever was a pretty big deal on the coast as well). As the 1878 fever came up the river, people would explode out of the river towns looking for a place to hide from Yellow Jack. Holly Springs has the Grenada refugees to thank for our epidemic.
When the fever took hold in Holly Springs, our people exploded out of here looking for a safe haven in which to weather the storm. Almost everybody who could afford to get out of here got out. A few people stayed back voluntarily. The town fathers felt it their civic duty to stay and operate essential services; St. Joseph Catholic Church's parish priest and the 13 nuns from Bethlehem Academy elected to stay and nurse the sick.
The nuns were school teachers, not nurses; and the school was closed for summer vacation. There was no reason for their staying, but they stayed. The same is true of a group of Episcopal nuns in Memphis, Tenn. Mississippi's Secretary of State, Kinloch Falconer, returned from Jackson to help with the epidemic; and Sherwood Bonner returned from Boston to nurse family members. She survived, he did not. The point is that life was anything but normal during yellow fever epidemics.
Mr. Emmerich is correct in describing the present mood as a "global panic attack." Media people want to present the news in as exciting a manner as possible. That's understandable. They don't want to be outdone by the competition. The fact that there may be some favorable political fallout down the road is another reason for sensationalism in reporting. The result, however, is a lot of overanxious citizens. In the 1878 yellow fever epidemic in Holly Springs, the death rate was over 30 percent. The death rate among those who have tested positive for the virus is going to be about 1 percent. The actual death rate will be less because there will be a lot of young healthy people with good autoimmune systems who will get the virus and never know they've had it.
Mr. Emmerich is right to complain that people are taking the virus way too seriously. There is absolutely no reason for hoarding toilet paper. He is likely wrong about the need for the economy to take a hit. He is most surely wrong about life going on as usual during the yellow fever epidemic.
Very truly yours,
J.R. Dunworth
Holly Springs