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COVID-19 struck with a vengeance in 2020.
In the darkness of night, no one saw the Black Swan swim into view from out of the mist.
No one could predict how much damage it would do.
This latest Black Swan (let’s call it BS2) has so far been less inimical than a predecessor, BS1. That heralded the so-called Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, which affected up to a third of the world’s population and killed 50M. That illness, due to the H1N1 influenza A virus, lasted over 2 years, infecting in at least 3 successive waves. Unlike what has been the case in the current pandemic, that virus was most deadly in those age 20–40.
In 1918, children would skip rope to this little ditty:
“I had a little bird;
Its name was Enza.
I opened the window
And in-flu-enza.”
For some of you, rope-skipping is but a dim memory. For others, it may be an anachronism, like the manual typewriter and rotary telephone.
At last count, over 102M worldwide have been affected by BS2, and over 2.2M have died.
In the USA, the respective figures are over 25.9M and 436K.
It continues to rage.
