COVID-19 VIRUS - PERSPECTIVE

For a little perspective at this time, imagine you were born in 1900. When you are 14, World War I starts.  It ends four years later on your 18th birthday.  Over 22 million people are killed.  Later the same year, a Spanish Flu epidemic hits the planet.  It lasts until you are 20.  Fifty million people die from it in those two years. An unknown disease ran rampant through the 1920’s and for the next two decades until you’re age 53. It caused millions to die, and thousands more to be crippled for life, including President Roosevelt.  Many survived with little or no physical after effect.  It was discovered to be the polio virus in 1953.  A vaccine was developed in 1962. It was eradicated by 1968.  When you're 29, the Great Depression begins. Unemployment hits 25%, global GDP drops 27%.  That runs until you are 33. The country nearly collapses along with the world economy. When you turn 39, World War II starts. You aren’t even over the hill yet. When you're 41, the United States is fully pulled into WW II.  Over 4,000 are killed in a single day during the Normandy invasion.  Between your 39th and 45th birthdays, 75 million people perish in the war.  The Holocaust kills six million.  At 52, the Korean War starts and five million perish.  At 64 the Vietnam War begins.  It doesn’t end for many years.  Four million people die in that conflict.  Approaching your 62nd birthday you have the Cuban Missile Crisis, a tipping point in the Cold War.   Life on our planet, as we know it, could well have ended.  Great leaders prevented that from happening.  As you turn 75, the Vietnam War finally ends. Think of everyone on the planet born in 1900.  How did they survive all of that including several flu epidemics along then way causing unknown numbers of deaths.

Kids in 1985 thought their 85 year old grandparents didn’t understood how hard school was.  Yet, those grandparents (and now great grandparents) survived through everything listed above.  What their grandparents didn’t have was a 24/7 news media cycle fanning the flames, a plethora of experts jockeying for their 15 minutes of TV fame, and politicians speaking with the authority of God.

Perspective is an amazing art. Let’s try and keep things in perspective. Let’s be smart, help each other out, and we will get through all of this.  In the history of the world, there has never been a storm that lasted.  With the American spirit and perseverance this too shall pass. 

My father was born in 1901.  He died at age 104.  He lived through all the above, including the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon killing over 3,000 in a single day. Never once was the entire country shut down. 

So buck up, folks.  Deal with it.