Full circle
^ Years ago
and by years I mean decades. We’re tripping back to the late 50s and early 60s.
One of the couple that the folks played cards with was a nurse. Her job was to
track down cases of sexually transmitted diseases.
^ I wasn’t old
enough to be a part of this conversation. I was however old enough to find a
place to listen in on the conversations of adults without being detected. Many
small children possess this ability so parents be wary. (I had discovered a
medical reference textbook that parents had and read way above my age group so
I was technically knowledgeable way beyond my years.)
^ Anyway, the
nurse was relating the culmination of a contact tracing that had taken months. (No
she didn’t use names even then.) It started with one guy that she interviewed
that had contracted syphilis. She got the names of who he had sexual contact
with and then visited them. Then she found out who they had contact with and
visited them. And so on and so on. She ended up talking with 180 people that
had contracted the disease starting from just the one guy. The sad news. She
ended back up with him. That’s right. The same guy that started it all ended up
catching it again. One. Guy. One. Hundred. Eighty. People.
HIV/AIDS
^ Acquired
Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). When AIDS came along it was widely regarded
as a disease that affected gay people. Queers were deemed to be the primary
target of the HIV virus. There were Evangelicals then that considered AIDS to
be retribution from God. Then somebody thought to test prostitutes in Dade
County in Florida and discovered that half of them had AIDS. Then people got
interested.
^ One of the
most effective PSAs that I heard then was that when a person had sex with
someone they just had sex with every person that person had sex with. In other
words if the person you were with had had sex with a person that had AIDS then
it was possible that you could contract the disease without knowing it. Kind of
sobering. AIDS is still out there. No cure has been discovered and there’s no
vaccine. So there is still risk.
^ When I was
in the service and stationed in Korea soldiers contracting venereal disease was
a huge problem. At one time almost all the guys in my section were confined to
base until they were cured of their venereal disease. I knew two married guys
that went home with venereal disease. Yep, took it home to their wives. (BTW
that wasn’t supposed to happen but it did.) My guess knowing these guys is that
they would blame it on their wives. But that’s another story.
Confined.
^ Guys with
sexually transmitted diseases were confined to base to limit their contact and
spreading of the disease. Business girls that had it were banned from the
enlisted club until they tested negative. Thursday was the day that
“entertainers” for the EM club would get tested to be allowed to visit the EM
club.
^ Since we
were in the Army there was no expressed concerns for our Constitutional rights
being violated. Uncle Sam owned us.
^ Quarantines
are not new. They are used as a matter of public safety. The scope of this
pandemic is certainly larger and more complex compounded by the incredible lack
of leadership at the Federal level.
No one checked.
^ Contact
tracing during a pandemic is a whole other ball game. Those tracking people
down don’t have months to do their job. It has to be done fast and efficiently.
People have to know what they’re doing and have a unique set of skills when it
comes to getting the necessary information from people. They have to have their
boots on the ground at the very beginning.
^ SARS-CoV-2
was spreading undetected and unchecked for weeks. People were spreading the
disease without even knowing that they had it. There was no contact testing
being coordinated nationwide. According to the President it was under control
and would blow over. The disease had spread all over the globe. The warning
signs were ignored. Good grief, it showed up at Mar a Lago and that wasn’t
enough! I’m surprised that there isn’t a conspiracy theory tying Hillary
Clinton’s emails to it.
^ Tests
weren’t available in the beginning because it SARS-CoV-2 was new. SARS-CoV-2 is
the scientific name for the virus now. The tests developed since then that are
needed to detect have still not been distributed as was promised by the
President early on. Widespread testing is needed for contact tracing to have
success.
^ In the story
that I shared in the beginning the guy that contracted the venereal disease was
tested and came back positive for syphilis. In this pandemic people were tested
and died before the results came back. At times it was days before the results
were known.
“Will Circle be
Unbroken?”
^ If the
country can get to the place where adequate testing can be conducted to tell
who has it and who had it without knowing then the country can begin to get a
handle on it and better prepare for a second wave IF one comes. That is a big
unknown. The virus can also mutate and become more lethal to a broader spectrum
than oldsters and black people.
^ The one guy
mentioned above spread disease to 180 people. One. Guy. This whole limiting
crowd size to groups of 10 or less is arbitrary. Especially with an airborne
virus. 10 is not some magic number that automatically confers safety upon those
in the group. It still only takes one infected person to infect others. Staying
6 feet away from people is helpful but it is an airborne virus. Upwind?
Downwind? Does it hang around in calm air just waiting for some unsuspecting
person to walk into it? Keeping away from people as much as possible is what
works.
^ Everybody wearing
a mask would be incredibly helpful. Not likely though. Trump supporters and
Republican Jesters on the whole think this is a hoax. Their primary concern is
playing to their base and getting reelected.
^ The meme
circulating that adds percentages to mask wearers versus non-mask wearers are
not substantiated. However wearing masks is substantiated as reducing exposure.
Obviously it can still happen. But we have the people claiming that they have a
constitutional right not to do anything safe just because they don’t want to do
it in their world view. Their right to not self-quarantine is more important
than not killing you. It’s no different than those guys and gals that think
that it’s funny to cough on people during a pandemic. They believe in the rule
of law except for the ones that they don’t want to follow.
And then good people will die trying to take care of their sorry asses.