100 Years of Hidden Truth and Optimism

I wake up not to the noise of the city, but to silence. Each person rides the elevator down individually to the ground floor. Both cars and white-collar commuters have vanished; I wonder if the moving shadow across the street, which I have an unobstructed view of, is a person walking his dog. Or maybe the homeless?

It’s been one month since the U.S. proclaimed the national emergency because of the COVID-19 disaster. The cherry blossoms along the Potomac River are long gone. The abnormal has turned into “normal,” which is being rewritten as the “new normal.”

During terrorist attacks like 9/11, we got hope from daring to go about as if everything were normal. This is not like that.

We stand 2 meters (about 6 feet) apart in line for the cash register. I can see the empty shelves in my periphery. “Stay safe.” “You, too.” I cherish this casual exchange with the employees, as most of our social relations are now maintained through a small screen. But then I realize I have the sentimental privilege of being among those who can work from home.

Right now, more than 50 million Americans are working in jobs where they cannot avoid contact with other people, while in one month, more than 20 million lost their jobs. There are many occupations, like manufacturing and the service industry, where telework isn’t an option.

The economic disparity will probably widen even further going forward. Even if we get through the pandemic, it’s unlikely that we’ll be able to avoid the worrying after-effects of social fragmentation and political distrust.

Is it best just to give up, saying there was no way we could have predicted any of this?

History is sobering. We should have learned our lesson about 100 years ago.

From 1918 to 1920, the Spanish influenza took the lives of tens of millions of people. There are theories that it started in the U.S. or China, but the virus spread around the globe as soldiers moved across borders in the midst of World War I. The virus reportedly killed about 700,000 people in the U.S., the most ghastly of which experiences took place in the eastern city of Philadelphia, home to a naval shipyard.

In September 1918, the infection spread from about 300 crewmembers entering the port from Boston. At that moment, a magnificent parade was being planned to promote government bonds to raise money for war expenses.

The director of the Philadelphia Department of Public Health hid the facts regarding the spread of the infection. He passed off the growing numbers of the sick as having just caught the common cold, and stated that there was no need to worry. He was concerned that a widespread panic would lead to lower morale, and thus the government would not reach their goal of bond sales. Against the protest of medical experts, the parade took place. Some 200,000 citizens flocked to the streets to get a glance of the band and the new flying boats.

A great storm of infection raged. In 72 hours, all of the beds in the city’s 31 hospitals were occupied. By the next spring, 15,000 people had passed away.

This was an emergency in which information was stringently controlled. Even if we take this with a grain of salt, historian John Barry, author of “The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History,” says that the cost of lying to the public was huge. We know this because there were some cities that made the advent of the virus known and limited the damage.

The government’s silence is just as sinful as lying. President Woodrow Wilson never issued a formal statement about the national spread of the influenza virus. As Barry describes it, the government let optimism run rampant.

We need to earnestly face the truth. We need to speak the truth. Have we used the knowledge we gained from this tragedy?

As the COVID-19 disaster loomed, President Donald Trump spouted baseless optimism to Americans such as the virus would miraculously disappear with the heat; defended himself by claiming that he had no responsibility in the testing delays; and used his political opponents, the media and the World Health Organization as scapegoats.

If these were normal times, I would laugh this off as just political games, but considering the immense loss of life and unprecedented economic crisis, I wonder if Trump’s manner can endure.

I would like to add the following in honor of Philadelphia: instead of its dysfunctional government, it was the citizens who rose to the challenge, according to local historian Robert Hicks. They were the ones who transported patients in their private cars; they were the ones who handed out meals in impoverished neighborhoods; they were the ones who took in the children who had lost their parents. The sacrifice was great, but the recovery was also quick.

If there’s ever a time for us to learn our lesson, it’s now.