Stories from Old Timers in a time of Coronavirus
Over the weekend I was on my way to see my mum (for my scaled back birthday celebrations) and on my way there while waiting at an intersection, I heard an ambulance siren blaring. I looked to see where it was coming from and saw cars opposite me trying to move out of the way. The ambulance didn't wait for the cars to move - it just mounted a traffic island to overtake the cars ahead of it and get through the intersection. A sign of the times.
During my visit, my mum started talking about how, despite what people are saying, taking extreme lengths during an outbreak of serious illness is only unprecedented for people born after the 1950s. Granted, these outbreaks didn't result with society coming to an almost complete halt, as we are seeing now. But there were diphtheria outbreaks in days of yore and I've heard about the polio outbreaks as the stuff of history. In a story I hadn't heard before, according to my mum when there was a polio outbreak in Perth in 1948, her mother took her and her two sisters by train to stay with their grandmother, who was living in a place called Cue, one of the Western Australian goldfields. I checked Google maps - Cue is in the actual middle of nowhere. Beyond the black stump. The back of beyond. Even today, the train trip takes a day and a half. And my mother's side of the family have always been a bit scandalous. Her grandmother, Gladys, lived there with a man called Mr Hill. My mum said, as a seven year old, she was confused as to why her grandmother was referred to as Mrs Hill. Anyway, they stayed away from Perth for three weeks.
Another story was that my Dad survived a diphtheria outbreak when he was two years old, because his mother had kept up to date with the vaccination schedule (as it existed in the mid 1930s). He had only had the first one, but it was the difference between life and death. Another kid in the same street wasn't so lucky.
So probably worthwhile to ask the old timers (I told my mum she is now an "old timer") about their experiences with disease outbreaks.
Kind of related to this, governments have been giving mixed messages about school closures and it is puzzling. Back in the day taking kids out of school for three weeks during an epidemic wasn't problematic. An official closure would work best, with the schools remaining open with skeleton staff for child minding only (not everyone can work from home or make alternative arrangements at short notice). It is a very simple solution. And also, I just know that if this had happened when I was a kid, unless there was an official closure, I would have been trudging off to school everyday without fail and not by choice. 😒
During my visit, my mum started talking about how, despite what people are saying, taking extreme lengths during an outbreak of serious illness is only unprecedented for people born after the 1950s. Granted, these outbreaks didn't result with society coming to an almost complete halt, as we are seeing now. But there were diphtheria outbreaks in days of yore and I've heard about the polio outbreaks as the stuff of history. In a story I hadn't heard before, according to my mum when there was a polio outbreak in Perth in 1948, her mother took her and her two sisters by train to stay with their grandmother, who was living in a place called Cue, one of the Western Australian goldfields. I checked Google maps - Cue is in the actual middle of nowhere. Beyond the black stump. The back of beyond. Even today, the train trip takes a day and a half. And my mother's side of the family have always been a bit scandalous. Her grandmother, Gladys, lived there with a man called Mr Hill. My mum said, as a seven year old, she was confused as to why her grandmother was referred to as Mrs Hill. Anyway, they stayed away from Perth for three weeks.
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| The green bit is Cue, WA |
Another story was that my Dad survived a diphtheria outbreak when he was two years old, because his mother had kept up to date with the vaccination schedule (as it existed in the mid 1930s). He had only had the first one, but it was the difference between life and death. Another kid in the same street wasn't so lucky.
So probably worthwhile to ask the old timers (I told my mum she is now an "old timer") about their experiences with disease outbreaks.
Kind of related to this, governments have been giving mixed messages about school closures and it is puzzling. Back in the day taking kids out of school for three weeks during an epidemic wasn't problematic. An official closure would work best, with the schools remaining open with skeleton staff for child minding only (not everyone can work from home or make alternative arrangements at short notice). It is a very simple solution. And also, I just know that if this had happened when I was a kid, unless there was an official closure, I would have been trudging off to school everyday without fail and not by choice. 😒
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