Day 82: Are we agoraphobic, yet?
Crowds. Are they a thing of the past? Agoraphobia is an anxiety disorder characterized by symptoms of anxiety in situations where the person perceives their environment to be unsafe with no easy way to escape.
I read, in various social places, people who are complaining about others not doing the proper thing, right now, when they are outside. “A runner ran right past me and wasn’t six feet away. The huffing and puffing causes them to breather heavier and the air has their spit traveling in it.” A remark will send a whole slew of other remarks about that. First off, all the person who made the remark had to do was wear a mask when she went walking, and that would solve her problem. Instead, she had to go through a tirade of angry remarks about this person. Some who responded were on her side, and others were not.
It’s interesting that there are so many on neighborhood social circles you begin to know which ones will be the complainers, and which ones will not. Sometimes the feed will have 150 comments (I don’t read them all, but it tells you how many there are). Typically, it is the same ones who start negative feeds, and I wonder what they do with their time while they are at home. It’s easy to get lost in it, too. Social media can eat up HOURS a day. This happened before all this came on us, so I really can’t blame this on COVID, other than it gave people a new thing to talk about.
It’s hard to know what to think, anymore, and I wonder if we will be able to go back to some sense of normal, again. I saw someone post about all the different flu and other pandemics over the past years, and how many died from whatever the sickness was. My dad’s sister died in the one of 1918. Here are some of the statistics I read:
2005–2012 HIV/AIDS at its peak, death toll, 36 million. This was first identified in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in 1976. Those 36 million were since 1981.
Flu Pandemic of 1968, called the Hong Kong Flu, killed 1 million. This was caused by the H3N2 strain of the influenza A virus, a genetic offshoot of the H2N2 subtype. According to this article, it took only 17 days before outbreaks were reported in Singapore and Vietnam, and within three months had spread to the Philippines, India, Australia, Europe, and the United States.
The Asian flu in 1956–1958 killed 2 million. This pandemic outbreak was of the Influenza A of the H2N2 subtype that originated in China. In that two year spree, it traveled from the Chinese province of Guizhou to Singapore, Hong Kong, and the United States. Of those 2 million deaths, nearly 70,000 were in the US, alone.
The flu pandemic of 1918 and 1920 took 20–50 million making it the most severe pandemic in recent history. This followed the end of WWI, which produced about 20 million deaths. This flu was caused by the H1N1 virus with genes of avian origin. One article estimated that 500 million people were infected world wide, with about 675,000 occurring in the United States. There were no vaccines then, and they used interventions like isolation, quarantine, good personal hygiene, and limitations of public gatherings.
In 1910–1911 there was a cholera pandemic, the sixth, which originated in India and killed over 800,000 before spreading to the Middle East and Africa, Eastern Europe and Russia. Cholera is a bacterial disease of the small intestine that causes severe vomiting and diarrhea. The American health authorities caught on quickly and isolated the infected, and the US only had 11 deaths from that.
The flu pandemic of 1889–1890 was called the Asiatic flu, or the Russian flu, and it killed 1 million people. It spread through Central Asia, northwest Canada, and Greenland. Rapid population growth of the 19th century helped spread the flu across the globe. I believe this flu caused the death of my mother’s first five siblings in Europe before my grandfather came to America. They were from Croatia. My grandmother was pregnant 17 times; five lost to the flu, 3 miscarriages, and 9 live births (they are all gone now).
The third cholera pandemic of 1852–1860 took 1 million away. This originated in India from the Ganges River Delta and tore through Asia, Europe, North America, and Africa. A British physician tracked the cases in Great Britain to contaminated water. 23,000 people died there.
The Bubonic Plague — the Black Death of 1346–1353 ravaged Europe, Africa, and Asia with an estimated death toll between 75–200 million. This was thought to originate in Asia, and they think it jumped continents from the fleas living on the rats that frequented merchant ships. Ick. If your household has ever had fleas, you know that infestation alone is horrible.
The Bubonic Plague of Justinian in 541–542 was thought to have killed half the population of Europe, killing 25 million. It afflicted the Byzantine Empire and Mediterranean ports. This was regarded as the first recorded incident of the Bubonic Plague, the Plague of Justinian. It left its mark on the world killing up to a quarter of the Eastern Mediterranean and devastating the city of Constantinople, killing a whopping 5000 a day, taking out about 40% of their population.
The Antonine Plague of 165 AD took out 5 million. It was also known as the Plague of Galen. It affected Asia Minor, Egypt, Greece and Italy. Though the cause is unknown, some think it was a small pox or measles disease. Roman soldiers unknowingly brought it back to Rome killing the Roman army.
What we are going through is not new. It is still extremely hard to handle, though. Maybe not in the same way as in the past. We have internet, and other ways of communicating and learning things much faster. Even though hospitals in some areas were overflowing with the sick, and they ran out of some supplies for awhile, many people have come through helping. I can’t even imagine what it must have been when 5000 a day were dying. I would assume there were mass cremations, because you could never keep up with the burials.
The easiest thing you can do is wear a mask. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. I saw pictures of people during the 1900s wearing just cloth masks that tied on. The ones who are complaining about others outdoors don’t need to be outdoors, and they could be wearing their own masks. The ones that are complaining, the ones I’ve been reading on this neighborhood network, are not wearing masks. Why not just stay home if you fear for your safety? I have been keeping my distance when I’ve had to go out, but mostly I just stay home. I keep some masks in the car.
I don’t know what it will be like when I can go back to my fulltime job and service customers. I was doing quite a bit of massage but I don’t know what I will do. Should I wear gloves and a mask? Do I ask my clients if they washed their hands? Do I no longer massage hands, or will they be afraid of me touching their faces? We practice good hygiene at work. We have to, but do I know if the clients do? I know some don’t. I know that many go to work sick, or many clients come in sick, because I hear them cough or have sinus issues. We keep hand sanitizer in all the rooms, except the bathrooms, but there is a sink to wash in there, so no need.
I don’t know what I will do. I know that it is going to feel much different being there. And then I read that they believe it will resurface in the Fall. Whatever you think about all this, politically, employed still, or unemployed, in whatever you do for work, please do your part to stop the spread. I didn’t believe all this at first, myself. I mean I knew that there was a flu going around, but there are flus every year. I guess this one is considered more of a respiratory illness but I think the ‘flu’ can attack any area of the body. It’s a virus. A virus doesn’t care. It has no feelings. It knows no race, religion, culture, or political beliefs. It knows no age because even though it appears to be hitting more aged and sick, the one in 1918–1920 was taking out those under five, and many 20–40 year olds.
Stay well, protect yourselves, and others. Carry a mask with you, or just put a scarf around your mouth and nose if you don’t have a mask. I’ve seen many creative ideas.
