“These germs of disease have taken toll of humanity since the beginning of things—taken toll of our prehuman ancestors since life began here. But by virtue of this natural selection of our kind we have developed resisting power; to no germs do we succumb without a struggle… But there are no bacteria in Mars, and directly these invaders arrived, directly they drank and fed, our microscopic allies began to work their overthrow…By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers; it would still be his were the Martians ten times as mighty as they are. For neither do men live nor die in vain.” War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells 1898

It was the Fall of 2004 and I was telling panicked elderly people that no- there was no flu vaccine. 

To put it in perspective, we were three years out from the terrorist attacks of 9/11. We had been at war with Iraq for over a year and what was supposed to be a smash and grab regime change was getting deeper and uglier with no end in sight. The Department of Homeland Security was putting out color coded terrorism threat alerts so we could know how scared we were supposed to be. 

Germ warfare was one of the many terrors that the news speculated might await us. And, in fact, not long after the 2001 World Trade Towers attacks, letters containing Anthrax were mailed to news media and politicians, injuring postal workers and ordinary people as well. Five people died. The workers at the Post Office were wearing blue rubber gloves. I thanked them for their service. 

There was also fear that smallpox, eradicated from Earth in 1980, might be brought back to life and weaponized. Thousands of first responders and health care workers volunteered to be injected with the vaccine that left a single pock mark scar on the arms of the older generation, but had been in storage for decades and was meaner and riskier than the vaccines we use now. 

I thought that after 9/11, making the flu vaccine universally available would be a no-brainer. With the country stressed about threats both actual and potential, the last thing we needed was a bad flu season with sick, frightened people crowding into emergency rooms. It was obvious that some of the money going into defense should re-build the public health defenses we had neglected for too long. But, in fact, there was no more foresight in fortifying the American health system than fortifying the levees in New Orleans that Katrina would sweep away in 2005. 

The flu vaccine is different every year because the flu mutates. Each year scientists meet at the World Health Organization to make their best estimations of which flu strains present the greatest risk and then the US has about 6 months to manufacture or buy vaccine. In 2004, the supply chain was disrupted because the British manufacturer of a large part of our American vaccine supply didn’t meet British standards of sterility. Why there are not uniform, international safety standards is a question we might want to ask now, as we face a global pandemic with nations racing to make a vaccine. 

Vaccines were so effective against infectious disease in the 20th Century that it was possible to forget the diseases that took babies and children, like diphtheria and whooping cough. The Polio epidemics that paralyzed children and adults, the German Measles that caused babies to be born deaf were preventable, and then prevented.

Toward the end of the 20th Century HIV began to spread across a divided world. We could learn from the failures and successes in fighting that disease so that we can respond to Coronavirus with rationality and respect for human life, rather than with political fighting and wishful thinking. 

We could also vow not to let a disease spread while politicians deny and profiteers get rich off misery. To date, there is no vaccine for or herd immunity to HIV.

‘Herd Immunity’ is a tough, scientific sounding way of saying “let a lot of people die”. When H.G. Wells wrote War of the Worlds that was about all we had. Thousands of years of Smallpox didn’t beat the disease, it continued to kill people until it was vanquished by human ingenuity and cooperation across nations to aggressively vaccinate everyone. Cooperation is essential to beating Covid 19.

Remember when you go to the store and put on your mask, that although your personal risk is low, the people at the checkout counter are face to face with customers all day, and wearing masks protects them. There are people who have major, invisible disabilities who look just fine and go to work every day. Patients in nursing homes are cared for by 3 shifts every 24 hours and those workers go home to their families. There is no way to beat an epidemic without collective effort. 

As we face a global crisis, the current president has decided to leave the World Health Organization. As we face a national crisis the president has left the medical response to the individual states, then criticized their governors and local health departments. He disparages scientists and reduces the discussion to whether you “believe” in whatever conspiracy theory or ‘game changer’ is pulled out this week. Viruses don’t care if you have faith, we need to fight this epidemic with fact.

In 1898 H.G. Wells imagined Martian spacecraft landing on Earth. Now over a century later, Earth has landed on Mars. Wells imagined the germs that take such a toll becoming our defenders. They drive our evolution and we drive theirs. We use what weapons we have against them when they invade our health and lives.

In Wells’ time home medicine and herd immunity were all they had. Contagious diseases took infants and their mothers and people at all stages of life. Our ancestors lived with grief and uncertainty that we have mercifully forgotten. We have so many weapons to use against disease that we assume that health is natural. Which it is, but so are epidemics. We should not surrender the hard won knowledge gained from history, or the best and newest gains medical science can achieve.

These are difficult times, but this crisis has inspired people to acts of volunteerism and care for our community. There is a latent power in our body politic to act from patriotism and a desire to serve and to save. We saw this after 9/11, we saw this after Katrina, we see this now. We will get through this.