As we move slowly, six feet apart from each other, through the coronavirus pandemic, I’m reminded of another pandemic.
The Golden Age By Joan London, Europa Editions, NY, 2014
As we move slowly, six feet apart from each other, through the coronavirus pandemic, I’m reminded of another pandemic.
Before the polio vaccine was developed and made widely available in the mid-nineteen fifties, this crippling and deadly disease came back every summer. When it surged, people were afraid to go to the beach, to public pools, or on public transportation.
And most frighteningly, the virus seemed to target children. Compared to the coronavirus, its effects were much more severe. If polio didn’t kill its victims with lightning speed, as if often did, it left them crippled. Some regained the ability to walk, some never did.
Like the Covid-19, the symptoms started with aching limbs, fever, and a headache. Then the nervous system was viciously attacked.
This virus traveled to the ends of the earth, affecting every continent.
A few years ago, I read a novel about the ravages of the polio epidemic as it hit Perth, Australia. The Golden Age was an actual polio rehabilitation hospital for children there. In this