The Other Pandemic

Okay, it was the blood that time.  This time it's the lungs.
I am old enough to remember that fear.  It was like missing your period when you did not want a pregnancy, only worse - the wondering, the panic.

I remember that isolation - sexual isolation.

I remember the shock when I heard about infected people who had not declared nor protected others!  It was a crime and people went to jail.

Yes.  People died then too.  Millions.

Interactive Map

I didn't live in Africa but in my own fears I sensed the dread and panic and eventually the matter-of-factness of grandmothers and children living in a world of a lost generation.  Not the old folks, that time.  Not usually, anyway.  And not always this time, either.

HIV, the virus can be kept secret.  No symptoms?  Shhhh. Nobody needed to know the truth.  Many people in  our midst died of "adrenal problems", or some strange "blood cancer" or "pneumonia".  Such a stigma that even through death, it was never acknowledged: AIDS: acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

So this time, it's just the breath.  It's not the blood.  There is less stigma but just as much denial.  Asymptomatic carriers - it is a thing.


Back then, there was no cure, no vaccination, no treatment.  For the first decade, tests were not reliable: the virus could linger, undetected, for months, some said. Prevention was to simply cover up!  Same as today.  Many did cover up.  To this day, many still do. A generation does, or so we hope. And back then, many abstained, with great difficulty, while today many are self isolating, with some inconvenience.  And there are more deniers this time.  #OhYeah.

Canadian Blood Services tried to pretend that virus didn't exist in their products.  Kind of Trumpish of them.  They denied until their backs were against the wall.  By then, people had died from tainted blood and today people are getting infected from lack of PPE.

We have been through this before.  This time, celebrities declared their infections, and we were chilled, but thought, "Thank you Hank, and Idris, and Charles," and we paid attention.  Back then, we were shocked when the celebrities faded and stepped forward in sorrow and the hope of education and research fundraising, so "Thank you Rock, and Magic, and Freddie."  Thank you Annie Lennox and Elizabeth Taylor.

The science catches up eventually.  Many people live with HIV now, and more survive AIDS.
That curve has been flattened.  AIDS is still with us, but education and science have made living with HIV in our midst, though still very real, but like in Africa, more matter-of-fact.  People are surviving AIDS (green), there are fewer infections (red) , and fewer deaths (blue) from those infections.  It still remains epidemc across countries in southern Africa.  And it is in every country on our planet.

Our job is to slow down the spread of COVID-19 so that it can run its natural course in a safe and treatable way, with as few casualties as possible.

It will not ever be gone.  We will always practice safe hygiene just as we now practice safe sex.