From the Ask Amy column in today's paper:
Dear Amy: I'm responding to the question from "Exasperated Mom," regarding children wearing masks in school.
My mother died in 1957 in the Asian flu pandemic. I caught the virus at school (I was in kindergarten) and passed it to her.
We lived in Aurora, Ohio.
My teacher didn't know there was at least one student in her classroom who passed it on to me, and perhaps other students. No one was masked.I remember being quite sick, and I remember my shock and sadness as a 5-year-old on the morning that my mother died.
Catching that illness at school created deadly havoc in our home and has haunted me my whole life.
I'm 69 years old now, and the loss of my mother certainly changed the lives of my sister and our father.
This coronavirus pandemic has brought back many memories, and I am a strong advocate of masks and vaccines.
Please continue to emphasize masks and vaccines in your column.
— The Rev. Kay Palmer Marsh
Rev. Kay Palmer Marsh: I’m so sorry you carry this loss.
Quoting from a fascinating article about the 1957 pandemic, published in Smithsonian Magazine (in June 2020):
“The pandemic of 1957-58 ultimately caused 1.1 million deaths worldwide, and it follows the 1918 crisis as the second-most severe influenza outbreak in U.S. history. Some 20 million Americans were infected, and 116,000 died. Yet researchers estimate that a million more Americans would have died if not for the pharmaceutical companies that distributed 40 million doses of [Maurice] Hilleman’s vaccine that fall, inoculating about 30 million people.”
Hilleman was a researcher with the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. He identified the H2N2 flu strain, raised the alarm about the approaching pandemic, developed the vaccine and pushed companies to rush vaccines into production.
As of this writing, so far almost 4.9 million people have died of covid-19 — 716,000 in the United States.
According to a global study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“Children: The Hidden Pandemic”), an estimated 2 million children worldwide had lost a parent or caregiver to covid by the end of June 2021.
So far, about 140,000 children in the United States have lost a parent/caregiver to the disease.
2021 by Amy Dickinson distributed by Tribune Content Agency
Dear Amy: I'm responding to the question from "Exasperated Mom," regarding children wearing masks in school.
My mother died in 1957 in the Asian flu pandemic. I caught the virus at school (I was in kindergarten) and passed it to her.
We lived in Aurora, Ohio.
My teacher didn't know there was at least one student in her classroom who passed it on to me, and perhaps other students. No one was masked.I remember being quite sick, and I remember my shock and sadness as a 5-year-old on the morning that my mother died.
Catching that illness at school created deadly havoc in our home and has haunted me my whole life.
I'm 69 years old now, and the loss of my mother certainly changed the lives of my sister and our father.
This coronavirus pandemic has brought back many memories, and I am a strong advocate of masks and vaccines.
Please continue to emphasize masks and vaccines in your column.
— The Rev. Kay Palmer Marsh
Rev. Kay Palmer Marsh: I’m so sorry you carry this loss.
Quoting from a fascinating article about the 1957 pandemic, published in Smithsonian Magazine (in June 2020):
“The pandemic of 1957-58 ultimately caused 1.1 million deaths worldwide, and it follows the 1918 crisis as the second-most severe influenza outbreak in U.S. history. Some 20 million Americans were infected, and 116,000 died. Yet researchers estimate that a million more Americans would have died if not for the pharmaceutical companies that distributed 40 million doses of [Maurice] Hilleman’s vaccine that fall, inoculating about 30 million people.”
Hilleman was a researcher with the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. He identified the H2N2 flu strain, raised the alarm about the approaching pandemic, developed the vaccine and pushed companies to rush vaccines into production.
As of this writing, so far almost 4.9 million people have died of covid-19 — 716,000 in the United States.
According to a global study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“Children: The Hidden Pandemic”), an estimated 2 million children worldwide had lost a parent or caregiver to covid by the end of June 2021.
So far, about 140,000 children in the United States have lost a parent/caregiver to the disease.
2021 by Amy Dickinson distributed by Tribune Content Agency