Wisdom Past and Present Will Help Beat Coronavirus

By Lisa Benton, MD, MPH

Just because you can now go outside, and Ohio is reopening for business does not mean that the virus has gone away. Remember, coronavirus doesn’t take a vacation just because you do. Consider wearing a mask as your civic duty to protect those you love and people at greater risk of get seriously ill and dying.

People of color are more likely to know someone who has been very sick and recovered or died from the virus. That fact matters in how we respond with taking precautions to prevent catching coronavirus. In contrast, people who don’t believe and deny that the virus can affect them have not personally known anyone who got sick. They may not realize covid-19 is a coronavirus almost nobody is immune to or feel like the virus only happens to other people.

In the United Kingdom Black and ethnic minorities were 90% more likely to die from coronavirus-related illness. In the United States with all of its hot spots, African Americans and people of color were 60% more likely to die. Hispanic Americans seem to be more likely to catch the disease.

If I didn’t know any better and maybe I don’t, I’d suspect there may be a melanin connection based on who catches the virus around the world. Perhaps someone will study that grant-worthy correlation.

We’re learning almost daily about new categories of people who may be at increased risk from coronavirus or one of its complications. For example, in addition to our elders, children and youth, children with autism, people in prisons and jails, seniors in residential homes or any group living situation are at higher risk of catching coronavirus. This is in addition to the obvious exposure risks essential workers face daily.

You are doing yourself an extra favor by wearing a mask, washing your hands, not touching your face with unwashed hands and keeping at least 6 feet apart.

We’ve recently learned that it doesn’t hurt to stay further apart than 6 feet since the virus travels more than 8 feet with loud speaking, singing, coughing and lingers in closed spaces like elevators or rooms without open windows.

Hoping that you and enough other people in your neighborhood and wherever you go will get infected and recover to produce antibodies to the virus, or not, to give us herd immunity, is no guarantee that you can’t catch coronavirus a second time.

Until a reliable vaccine and treatments for illnesses related to coronavirus become easily available and are not in short supply, keeping at least 6 feet of personal space around you, wearing a mask, standing behind plexiglass and frequent handwashing and scented hand sanitizers will be our new normal.

As of Memorial Day, there were at least 10 companies around the globe working on a vaccine. It also sounds like our government is getting the production pipeline ready for making the vials, special syringes, needles, and other hardware needed to package the vaccine so it’s ready for use. I hope they are also working as hard on a common sense distribution plan to make sure that the people at highest risk are at the front of the line, can get the shot easily, and it won’t cost an arm and a leg.

But as you know it takes time to make a safe vaccine and have it go through clinical trials to test it on healthy people first to make sure it doesn’t have side effects before giving it to people sick with coronavirus to see if it works.

To get an idea of how long the process takes, consider that the process for choosing and making the influenza (flu) vaccine for this fall was decided back in March or earlier. Making flu vaccine is a steam-lined, refined, high speed process, and that can take about 9 months or longer. You’ll want to get your flu vaccine and other vaccines recommend for your age, since as you get older your immune system weakness and you want to give your body every boost against these infections that you can possibly get.

You’ll know things are getting better when the food pantry lines shorten, unemployment drops and every transaction won’t be across plexiglass. One day again, we’ll find Lysol and Clorox wipes on store shelves any time we need some. It’ll be nice not to need to mail essential cleaning supplies across the country to friends and family, and even better to hug them without worrying that passing your germs on could be a death sentence.

Because I’d been hearing so much about how America and the rest of world will or has entered a recession, I asked my mom, who has lived through several economic downturns, how bad it really got and how you knew when it ended.

I needed a better image than waiting on a long line overnight for the newest phone or sneaker, but instead waiting hours to buy one tube of lipstick in one color only. (Ok, there are a lot more practical and urgent needs than lipstick for an example, but I thought it worth mentioning since it isn’t really needed when you’re wearing a mask these days).

My mom shared with us kids that she remembered going shopping as a little girl with her mom in the days when “nylons”- pantyhose, and other essential beauty items were rationed. It was during wartime, and there were shortages everywhere. Her mom, my nana, like so many stay-at-home wives, took a job working at the government Office of Dependent Benefits while my grandfather was away in the Army. That was a big deal.

Back then and sadly now, so many people must line up for hours for food and other basic needs. Before today’s tough economic times, we remember as kids going with our parents and sitting in the car for hours on hours waiting for gasoline during the 1973 gas shortage.

Sometimes after hours of waiting they had gas and sometimes they didn’t. I recall seeing people pushing their cars hoping to get to the pump for a few drops of gas. That memory makes me even to this day, be sure to keep at least ¼ tank of gas in my car. Seeing the endless lines for essentials today reminds me, America has a long way to go, to be considered back open for business.

Over the years, my siblings and I would hear our parent and grandparents stories and messages for living that came out of their struggles to make a way during hard times. These days I appreciate their words of wisdom and resourcefulness even more. Why they kept money in their mattresses, pennies in jars and always had extra Spam, peanut butter and canned milk around makes sense.

My grandmother, great aunts and uncles had a 101 uses for old newspaper and at least 10 recipes for leftover chicken with beans rice and government-issued cheese, meat and powdered milk. And they did it all without the benefit of the internet and were ok. Looks like our elders have set the bar very high for