Accidental infections

I recently continued reading the Summer edition of Lapham's, entitled Epidemic.  I had set it aside for a while, partially to catch-up on some other reading, and, I guess, partially because we have been living in this surreal world of the virus for the last 9 months.

A few days ago I encountered the story of Gene Tierney and her experience with being on the receiving end of an accidental infection.  For those of you who know the story, it is well worth hearing again, and for those of you unfamiliar with it (as I was) it is certainly relevant to what we see occurring with COVID-19.

Gene Tierney was a famous America actress during the 1940's and 50's.  Being a renowned and popular actress during WW2, she often spent time visiting and entertaining our troops.  In March of 1943, Tierney visited the Hollywood Canteen to meet and entertain the local GI's as was often done during those years.  The evening was uneventful, although she did encounter a young woman Marine that evening, an encounter that would change her life immensely.

A few days after that appearance, Tierney awoke with red spots all over her face.  Her doctor diagnosed her ailment as rubella, also called German measles, and he advised her to delay her scheduled trip to Kansas to meet with her husband, famed fashion designer Oleg Cassini.  It was at Fort Riley, Kansas that she and Oleg planned to raise their first child as Tierney was in her first trimester of pregnancy.

Within a year of the birth of their daughter, Daria, Tierney knew something was wrong. Then one day she read an article that a year after an outbreak of German measles in Australia, a generation of defective babies was being reported.  Up until then, there had been no direct evidence that this form of measles was dangerous to the a baby in utero, but as the research intensified and the evidence mounted, it was clear that German measles was one of the few diseases that could be transported via the bloodstream to a developing fetus, and that it could permanently damage the nervous system of the baby.

As it turned out, exposure in the first trimester was the worst time for the fetus, and was the time frame for  Tierney's bought with the disease.

Daria never improved.  She never spoke, could never see clearly and could barely hear. 

About a year after Daria's birth, Tierney was visiting in Los Angeles when a young woman approached her and told her that she probably didn't remember her but she had met and spoken with her at the Hollywood Canteen when she was in the woman's branch of the Marines.  Tierney shook her head that she didn't recall the meeting, but the woman remembered every little detail.

"You know," she said, "I probably shouldn't tell you this, but the whole camp was down with German measles, but I broke quarantine even though I was told not to.  I just had to meet the stars, and, you were my favorite."

Tierney didn't tell her the damage that had resulted but she remembers no longer caring anymore after that if she was anyone's favorite actress.

As sad as this story is, as mad as one might feel towards the selfish lady marine who placed her desire to see someone famous above the health of others, it is not a rare occurrence.  While we don't yet know how many people have been infected (and died) of COVID-19 by their own family members, friends, co-workers or neighbors, let alone strangers, it is not hard to guess that tens of thousands of Americans have been victimized just as Gene and Daria Tierney were in 1943.

When someone gets in their car, drunk, and kills someone while driving home, there is a penalty for such behavior.  Now, one might say that alcoholism is a disease, and the perpetrator of such a tragedy should be given help rather than prison, but we certainly would restrict their ability to drive again.  

But what of a person who wantonly endangers another person through a lack of caring for others, or simply because it is inconvenient.  How do we gauge the patriotism of someone who actively resists the simple act of wearing a mask in public, just in case they are asymptomatic, yet infectious?  Who have decided that their rights or freedoms demand a resistance to being "muzzled" when the act of masking up can lessen the kind of tragedy that had befallen Gene Tierney, let alone her innocent daughter.

We will probably never know how many Americans were saved sickness, whether just for 10 days, or an extended time frame due to complications, never know how many of our older citizens, or those with underlying health conditions were saved from death by the simple donning of a cloth mask or face covering.

But we do know that there are at least 400,000 stories of people who did not survive this pandemic.  That this disease will kill more Americans than any other event save the Civil War.  I don't know how history will judge us for our failure to address this virus, our acceptance that we need to make the false choice between death and our economy, but I imagine that there may be some who will call this our Uncivil War.  A time when we purposely defied standard health practices as some kind of act of patriotism, when we chose to maintain the stereotypes and prejudices that put Confederate generals on pedestals and the knee of a white police officer on a dying black man's throat, when we made the decision, conscious or subconsciously, to reject our founding documents which were forged from debate, contention and compromise in lieu of a misguided belief that consensus is possible or even desired.

Gene and Daria Tierney were accidentally infected and suffered the consequences.  It is difficult for me to describe as accidental, the rancor and division that has been employed which drove Americans to attack their own capitol, and continues to drive even more Americans to believe it is all or nothing, one way in absolutes, or nothing.  But it is certainly clear to me that like Gene and Daria, there are far too many victims, victims of a viral disease, victims of ideological diseases, victims of a war without guns and bullets, but just as deadly.