Pandemic Journal No. 30
That Was Then
Change is inevitable, but I've always been more intrigued by the "why" and "how" change comes about. It's also fun to look back to a time before a given change took place. Sometimes we're mortified at our own actions and behavior before a given change occurs. Sometimes that mortification is pretty damn funny.
Seatbelt Usage
According to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration less than 10% of drivers used seat belts in 1974. No one really thought about the dangers of driving, so virtually no one wore seat belts, which explains why the following situations routinely occurred.
When I was a kid we had a 1974 Buick Electra 225 Limited that drove like warm honey. It was a royal limousine to me with its endless bench seats and electric windows and doors. I was a small child, and I loved sitting on the armrest in the front seat as we cruised down the highway. It's easily identifiable in the below image, although our car was a beautiful, dark brown with tan interior. (I think the car in the image belonged to a colorblind pimp.) Had the car ever abruptly stopped I would have been launched head first into the dash and/or windshield. In a head-on collision I would have become a human projectile. Luckily, that never happened.
Julie Broberg sent me the following story about a pickup they had.
Sometimes Mom would separate me and Monica from fighting on the big bench seat by making Monica sit to her left while she drove. There was kind of a big space on the floor between the door and the seat and Monica was freakishly small for many years, so she fit down there and it kept us from picking at each other.
I can't imagine any parent today allowing their child to ride on an elevated launch pad or between the driver's door and the front seat, but it was very different back then. No one gave a second thought to such.
Today, 90% of Americans buckle up, but it took 25+ years of televised public service messages from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, as well as repeated safety messaging in driver education courses before people really understood the risks of not using a seat belt.
Fortunately, the message finally sank in.
Pop Bottles, Trains and Pennies
When I wasn't riding high in our Buick I often scavenged for pop bottles around town. The 10-ounce glass bottles fetched a nickel at the grocery store and the quart bottles were worth fifteen cents.
One of my most lucrative hunting grounds was along the railroad tracks that used to run through town. Littering was practically the norm back then (another change I'll discuss next time), so the train engineers, etc. would toss their empty pop bottles out the window. I'd make about fifty cents on a good day, but it was my fifty cents and I earned it.
It was a bonus when the train would come through while I was hunting along the tracks. I'd give the engineer the signal to blow the whistle and most often he'd oblige. But the big treat was placing a penny, or a flat disc punched out of an electrical box (we called them slugs) on the track so the train wheels would flatten it. Being very curious it wasn't enough for me to pocket the flattened penny once the train passed; I wanted to watch the process up close. So, I would carefully position the penny or slug in the center of the rail. Then, once the engineer passed by I would sneak up to just a few feet from the train wheels and watch each wheel ride over the penny, or slug.
As with riding on the Buick's launch pad, it never occurred to me how dangerous it was to get that close to a moving train. My fascination with the process pretty much consumed any inclinations I had towards my own safety.
I'm guessing right about now my mom is finding out in real time that I often sat mere feet from moving trains when I was a kid. I'm pretty sure she would have frowned upon that activity, or maybe had a heart attack.
Sorry, Mom.
Lastly, being part hillbilly I am partial to the music of bands like The Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd. So, the first time I heard Lynyrd Skynyrd's The Ballad of Curtis Loew more than 30 years ago it took me back to my pop-bottle huntin' days. I go back there every time I hear this song. I hope you enjoy it too.
Times they do change.
PS: Feel free to send me your stories about how times have changed using the “Comments" field at the bottom of the page. I'd like to include them in future pandemic journals.
Purple Rain
Change can surprise, sadden, stimulate or even sedate. It can be seismic or subtle, sinister or saintly, and it has the power to strengthen or shatter.
But the face of change is often in the eye of the beholder. Take Prince's iconic masterpiece Purple Rain, for example. I'm a huge Prince fan, and so I see Purple Rain as a brilliant confluence of musical genius and a piercing narritive. Why change brilliance?
Because change can surprise, like when Dwight Yoakam plays Purple Rain, backed by a mandolin and fiddle. The brilliance remains, and so the song remains the same, to steal a line from Led Zeppelin.
Enjoy the brilliance.
They Got it Right
In the midst of this global upheaval called a pandemic there are five resounding success stories of governments that got it right. They all acted early, quickly, decisively and most importantly, not politically. There's one more interesting trait of note with these governments: Four of the five governments are headed by women.
Taiwan (President Tsai Ing-wen)
President Tsai has a reputation for being intolerant of bullshit. She gets things done, even if it doesn't fit her political party's agenda.
Sitting just 110 miles off the coast of mainland China, Taiwan's outbreak could have been disastrous. At the end of January, the island was estimated to have had the second-highest number of cases in the world, according to Johns Hopkins University
But Taiwan, with a population of around 24 million people, has recorded just over 390 cases and six deaths, as of April 16.
It should be noted that Taiwan has 24 million people packed onto an island not much bigger than Vermont. This made Taiwan ripe for widespread infections. Yet, President Tsai's decisive actions averted disaster for her country.
New Zealand (Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern)
As reported by the Associated Press,
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has taken bold steps, putting the country under a strict lockdown in late March, when only about 100 people had tested positive for the new virus. Her motto: “Go hard and go early.” New Zealand has so far avoided a widespread outbreak, and new cases have dwindled from a peak of about 90 per day in early April to just five yesterday.
I've watched Prime Minister Ardern pretty closely since she took office in October 2017, at age 37 no less. She's not without her critics within New Zealand, but she's proven to be a very effective, unifying leader.
Iceland (Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir)
Prime Minister Jakobsdóttir excels at working across the aisle with the political opponents in her government, as opposed to attacking them with demeaning, childish rants.
The Union Journal reported:
Getting a coronavirus check in lots of countries could be close to not possible, until you are already very ailing. Not so in Iceland, the place anybody who needs a check will get one. Widespread testing has been essential to the nation’s low variety of infections and deaths, authorities there say. Only round 1,700 individuals have been contaminated in Iceland, and solely eight have died.
South Korea (President Moon Jae-in) President Moon is the sole male in the group. Sorry for the cheap pun, but as I've said before, the damn things are practically involuntary for me.
CNN reported on April 16:
It's telling that South Korea reported its first coronavirus case at around the same time as the US and UK. South Korea is confirming around 30 new cases a day, while in the UK it's around 5,000, and the US it's more than 20,000.
The way each country tests varies, but their death rates among the population contrast just as dramatically. Fewer than one in every 100,000 people in South Korea's population have died from the virus, while in the UK it's around 18. It's almost eight in every 100,000 in the US, JHU data shows.
South Korea's success has been largely down to its testing, according to Dr. Eom Joong Sik from the Gil Medical Center near Seoul. Eom is treating coronavirus patients in hospital and sits on a committee that advises the government in its response.
"Early diagnosis, early quarantine and early treatment are key," he told CNN.
Germany (Chancellor Angela Merkel)
Chancellor Merkel's legacy will be as one of the greatest heads of state to ever hold office in Europe, or anywhere else for that matter. Some political commentators today refer to her as the “leader of the free world,” noting that “the American president may be the most powerful person in the free world, but he's an abomination as a leader.”
CNN reported on April 16:
Germany's case is a little different. The country hasn't really been able to keep infection numbers at bay much better than some of the hardest-hit nations. It currently has more than 132,000 confirmed infections, the fifth-highest in the world, Johns Hopkins University reports.
But Germany has been able to keep the death rate in its population relatively low. More than 3,400 people have died from the virus in Germany, around four people in every 100,000 across the country. That's well below Italy's 35 and the UK's 18.
Germany's success has also been its mass testing, but its well-resourced universal healthcare system has played a major role too, according to Martin Stürmer, a virologist who heads IMD Labor in Frankfurt.
Germany has the misfortune of bordering Italy to the north, the hardest hit area in the world for the pandemic. In spite of that disadvantage, Angela Merkel's government mobilized almost overnight to minimize the casualties. And it's worked.
All five of these countries also have universal healthcare, which enabled them to respond in a rapid, coordinated fashion. But many countries with universal healthcare failed their citizens, such as Italy. The most successful countries combating the spread of the virus combined strong, decisive leadership with the organizational power and resources of a modern universal healthcare system.
As of April 21 America has 781,649. COVID-19 cases, including 42,444 deaths. Both rank as the highest figures of any country in the world, by far.
So here's a question for the Trump administration: How is it these five countries got it right (And two of them are next door to China!), while the wealthiest, most powerful nation on earth failed miserably to take early, decisive action to save American lives?
Hint: You won't find the answer on Faux News, I mean Fox News.
Stay safe, distanced, connected, well and well-informed.
Sluggo