PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

a disease can be so devastating when people have access to food, water and sanitary conditions. It's rarely discussed that the most deadly disease in the modern first world - the "Spanish Flu" - happened at the end of WW1, when there were horrific conditions in Europe as a result of the war, and America was well beyond Europe on sanitation (remember, at this time, we pushed as arighteous idea, building quarantine islands).

Diseases like Ebola happen to pop up - not coincidentally - in areas where starvation is tragically common, and there is not always access to fresh water and sanitary places to use the bathroom. Ebola made an appearance in America and disappeared in five seconds. There's probably good reason for that. When we think of the plague, the people living with the plague were suffering through a time of far colder conditions than now, food shortages, poor city planning by lords and royals, and the same lack of access to fresh water and sanitation. Plus, bodies were often just left on the street. Rats got into food. It's very different than the world we are currently in. Sars-covi-2 has killed less than 1/2 a percent of those who have gotten it, and only 1 percent of people in cases where symptoms were strong enough to lead someone to get tested, or a test was taken for some other reason, such as travel. As diseases become more common, they actually tend to become much less deadly. It's actually in the interest of disease not to kill. Living people make better transporters of disease than dead ones ; ) The work of our immune systems to learn and evolve, as well as the organism/virus to mutate into something that has a better chance of spreading is at play, as always.

As such, sars-covi-2 isn't going to go away. It's now part of the lexicon of our immune systems, at large, and some exposure to germs will actually be more beneficial for most of us in dealing with it, than not (some exceptions with people who have really compromised immune systems, for sure). Europeans in the 15th and 16th century mostly shrugged off diseases that came along with them and wiped out much of the indigenous people on the East Coast of North America. Exposure versus lack of exposure. The results made significantly worse by the disruption and destruction of the living systems that native peoples had, of course.

I'd spent about 25% of the last five years in a hospital visiting my dad, till the state made it illegal to visit family in early 2020. I've worked with kids in their homes for most of the last two decades - their families often not telling me when the kid was sniffling, prior to my visit. I road the Nyc public transportation system, and it's often sardine-packed buses, regularly until I moved away in my early 30's. Of any person I know, I get sick the least often, and in the rare occasion I get sick, I have a fast turn over time (this is a major shift from when I was younger). I must have the Albert Eistein of immune systems. White blood cells like a bunch of firefighters loaded up on coffee with the bell constantly going off, ever ready to go : )

Mankind killing mankind, now, that's a story all it's own. Immune system can't help with that. I don't think one can microdose nuclear fallout ; ) And there's no protection against a drone strike on one's roof. Food shortage? One can only hope to have the supplies/growing area and abilities. Then, hope you're not a target for those people who weren't so prepared, or only prepared with guns to take from others. We'll see, huh? What ever happens, today you and I are alive, and live in goodwill towards others. That means something.