By Sniffles
Well before March 2020, we cats avidly read about the 1918 "Spanish flu" epidemic — and, bizarrely, how people around the world seemed to set it aside after it was over.
"The Great Forgetting" — how did that happen? More than 50 million people had died, but did everyone choose to move past it because, coupled with the destruction of the First World War, it just was too painful to contemplate once it was done?
"When it was over, our grandparents and great-grandparents turned away and didn't look back. They simply dropped it from memory," journalist Nina Burleigh wrote. "Donald Trump's grandfather's death from the Spanish flu in 1919 changed the fortunes of his family forever, yet Trump never spoke of it — even while confronting a similar natural disaster."
Burleigh cited the success of vaccines for the Great Forgetting that's sure to happen with COVID. We agree. And seeing what's going on in vast swaths of the country right now, we think we understand how another Forgetting is about to take place.
Here in New York, even with mask mandates relaxed, we are still going out with them on. (To protect ourselves, and to protect the immunocompromised, some of whom we care deeply about.) But in other states, people are behaving as if COVID no longer exists. Why they want to take their chances with long-term cardiac and pulmonary complications, we have no idea. But it seems to be a thing.
Americans appear to be ready to be done with the coronavirus, even if the virus isn't quite done with them. And since the 1918 epidemic lasted into 1920, you can make the comparison: After two years, nobody wants to hear about it any more. The Great Forgetting of the 21st century is already underway.
It's understandable. But it isn't right. COVID still gallops among us. We cats urge caution, care and compassion, and we HISS.
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