An open letter to Covid-19: Okay, you virulent, infectious Virus, you–I have kept silent thus far, hoping we human beings would instinctively do the right thing in order to keep safe and not give you a platform from which to spring person to person! But it seems you are nastier than we ever anticipated. M Halterman

We had a wonderful kindergarten teacher in Ridgewood NJ, Miss Bevins. The thing I most remember about dear Miss Bevins (c. 1955) is how she reminded the classroom full of 30+ 5-year olds, repeatedly, to WASH OUR HANDS after using the lavatory…for most of you, that’s the bathroom! In those days, people were frightened about getting and spreading POLIO. Poliomyeltitis was the viral scourge of that era, which spread from person to person and paralyzed parts of the body. It put frightened children in iron lung machines to save their lives and keep them breathing, it crippled many, many children–and killed others! It left an indelible mark on families and put a big dent in children’s immune systems. Thank God for Drs. Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin, who developed vaccines that were used to immunize children against polio. Dr. Salk was an American virologist and medical researcher who developed one of the first successful polio vaccines. Dr. Sabin was best known for developing the oral polio vaccine that helped to nearly eradicate the disease. And the vaccines were given to us in our schools, by the way! Just as the Tine tests for tuberculosis were given to us at school–we had no choice in those days. Our parents were tasked to do the right thing. No vaccination, no tests–no school.

Families were used to spending more time together–and television hadn’t become the major recreational focus of the family unit. People were more disposed in those days to doing what was right by their family and by their neighbors. Community organizations promoting the good in society formed to help people. Organizations like Kiwanis, Rotary, Lions, and many others, sprang up across the country to try to help children and families get through the day-to-day challenges that poverty presented. Devastating crises had left people starving and without work: World War I, the Spanish Flu in 1916-17, the Dust Bowl, the Stock Market crash of 1929 (leaving people bereft through 1939), World War II, Korea, and the Philippines…and on…These were crises that could not be solved by television and social media. People either had to be self-reliant and get up off their rusty-dusty, and work IF they could find it, in order to survive–or they would not eat.

The American people–this melting pot of different languages, cultures, races and creeds–is very self-reliant when the going gets tough. We got tough again during 9/11 and we are tough now, in case you haven’t noticed. Over 4 million cases and CDC projects 160,000 deaths by August 2020 is a sobering statistic. Simply, each of us bears a certain responsibility to do the right thing, by ourselves, by our families and by our neighbors. We need to NOT SPREAD this infectious disease. We don’t even know everything about it yet–and the after effects are many! It’s not the common cold, it’s not simple bronchitis or even pneumonia, it’s a superbug that infects and kills without much warning. So WASH your HANDS, WEAR a MASK when you go out of the house, SOCIAL DISTANCE, yes, and restrict your goings and comings to the least necessary! DO the right thing–until a viable vaccine is available– to help minimize the spread.