I’ve been hearing a lot about the flu of 1918 in the past year and half – or the Spanish Flu.
Lately I’ve been wondering if what we should have been talking about was Polio.
I haven’t taken time to research Polio and don’t really know what I’d find if I did, but my impressions are: very contagious, possibly more localized so why we aren’t comparing it to COVID (?), horrendous disease, horrible life long effects if you lived through it. And greatly feared. Because it affected everybody and separated families.
What I do know is that adults and children had to be left in institutions to help them breathe, sometimes for a year or more and those places with the necessary equipment weren’t usually down the street but in another place and there was only horse and buggy to travel. Given the complications afterwards, it sometimes was wondered if it was better for the child to die, but no parent wanted to lose a child. Everyone was relieved and grateful when the vaccines came out.
If we were talking about Polio now, would it make a difference?