Lessons From the Past

We aren't even three months into sheltering in place due to the Covid-19 virus and already people are starting to become unhinged.  Someone recently relayed her experience at the grocery store on my hometown's community Facebook page.  In front of her a man and his young son were waiting in line at the registers with a full shopping cart.  He moved up before being called to do so and the cashier told him to wait.  The man flipped out and started yelling saying this whole thing was b.s.  After dropping several f-bombs, he grabbed his kid and stormed out of the store leaving his groceries behind.

A few days later, a gentleman sarcastically complained to this Facebook group about being chastised for walking in the wrong direction down the grocery store's one-way aisle by saying he must have flunked following supermarket arrows in high school.  (As a youth, he probably missed watching the old Sesame Street bit that taught children about one way signs!)

The sign said ONE WAY: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1C5r3r7zms

During a trip to get take out at a favorite restaurant, a woman working for Door Dash tried entering through the clearly-marked exit door.  I refused to let her in and told her everyone had to use the main entrance.  Even though those doors had prominent signage advising everyone to wear face masks, she just walked right in without a mask and started blabbing away to someone in line. 

Then you have all the people who don't wear their masks properly because they have a hard time breathing.  What seems to be lost to these ignoramuses is a sense of urgency.  The Covid-19 virus spreads so quickly because many infected people do not exhibit any signs they have it.  You can't say you're not contagious because you feel fine!  With the scientific community still trying to understand how to fight this virus, we all need to do our part to minimize its spread.  Unfortunately, some people are so self-centered, they just don't get it.  

I've read some pretty foolish comments from social media: “Quarantining healthy people is tyranny.”  “We should just let the virus run it's course and then be done with it.”  “It's mostly killing the old and the weak.”  “Shutting the country down is a mistake.  The cure is worse than the disease.”  To be blunt, this virus doesn't care about your job loss.  It doesn't care how inconvenienced you are waiting in long lines at the grocery store.  It doesn't care about projected time tables or targeted reopenings.  If we aren't careful, a second surge in the infection rate is likely.

For now, social distancing is one of the only things we have in our arsenal to fight the virus.  If Covid-19 was allowed to run it's course as some have suggested, we may develop a natural immunity to it but many more people would die.  When the black plague finally subsided about 30 to 60 percent of Europe's population had perished.  Smallpox, on the other hand was vanquished because of a vaccine and mass inoculations.  Now which strategy would you choose?

Sometimes I wonder how people would behave if Covid-19 had a 90 percent mortality rate.  Then I think about how this country pulled together during World War II.  If you think shopping at the grocery store is an inconvenience now, try using a ration book in 1942.  (And if you misused that ration book, you faced a 10k fine and / or ten years in prison!)  Families were limited in what they could buy and shortages were common.  My mother tells me beef went to the fighting soldiers overseas so her family had to purchase horse meat.  Butter was scarce so margarine with a yellow dye packet was used instead.  Housewives were told to save the excess fat from cooking so it could be used to make bombs.  Humorous ads during the war years instructed ladies to “bring their fat cans” down to their local butcher.  People were encouraged to save everything from the foil in gum wrappers to large pieces of scrap metal.  Victory gardens were commonplace.  Blackout drills required everyone to do their part and blackout wardens made sure you turned off that light.  Women who never worked in a factory before suddenly found themselves signing up to assemble tanks, airplanes and ships.  Gasoline was rationed and special stickers affixed to car windshields determined just how much fuel a person could buy.  The national speed limit was reduced to 35 miles per hour and pleasure driving was discouraged.  If the government wanted something from you back then, they didn't ask...they just took it.  When my mother was in grammar school, men from the government dressed in hats and trench coats came into class and fingerprinted everyone.  She was never told why but as an adult she found out this was done so their bodies could be identified if the Germans had bombed the school.  The war touched all levels of society and everyone was expected to rise to the occasion.  Most did.

The A, B, Cs...and S, M, X and Ts of gas rationing.

As difficult as all these restrictions seemed, they were not perceived as tyranny.  In fact, people were filled with a sense of patriotism.  Americans were keenly aware that their sacrifices on the home front were helping the soldiers overseas who were making an even bigger sacrifice.

How the average person behaved during WW II is a far cry from the squabbling I see now on the internet.  I wish everyone could take the lessons of the war years to heart and count the many blessings they have today because things could be much much worse.  One of my friends posted a thought-provoking meme on Facebook a few weeks ago that read, “To put things in perspective for those of us feeling a bit stir crazy already.  Anne Frank and 7 other people hid in a 450 Sq. ft. attic for 761 days, quietly trying to remain undiscovered to stay alive.”  I understand the frustration caused by being cooped up for so long and the desire to vent but we need to keep things in their proper perspective.