What the Past Can Teach Us About Virus' and Vaccinations
This week, I spent much of my time finalizing my presentation and editing my promotional content for my duties as a Student Brand Ambassador. After receiving feedback on my 30 minute introduction to the Digital Archive, I got to work perfecting the minute details. I also spent this week recounting and adjusting my roll out plan for the 2021-2022 school year, and drafting introductory emails to multiple administrators, professors, and university organizations.
This week's archive research led me to a new understanding of polio. The USA’s first encounter with the virus came with the 1916 polio epidemic which claimed over 6,000 American lives in the summer of that year. Although symptoms went unnoticed by roughly 95% of the infected, the remaining 5% experienced mild flu-like symptoms, fatigue, and infamously, paralysis. After the outbreak of 1916, polio went on to inflict over 57, 000 people before its eradication in the early 1950’s.
As such, the Digital Archive has numerous accounts of the scourge of polio. For example, Educator and comedian Carl Ray (1944 - 2014 ) detailed the memory of realizing he had contracted polio. He recounts, “ I just woke up and I was paralyzed… I could walk, but I, you know, the right side of my body, my arm and everything was just, it was just paralyzed.” He then goes on to explain the helplessness of the virus pre-vaccination, saying, “Basically, there was no treatment. I mean you gotta realize at that time the vaccine hadn't been discovered, so there was basically no treatment. The only treatment I received was physical therapy.... For a long time, I had no use of [my] hand whatsoever... and the doctor told [my mother], ‘Vidella, take the boy home, ain't nothing we can do for him.’" For Ray, recovery was slow, uncertain and largely unpromised. He told the archive about the residual effects polio had on his body when he said, “As you can see now, --these muscles are gone and I have pretty good use of it today. Now if I am in cold weather it automatically, you know, closes up and even to this day, but I have no use of the thumb in that area.”
Educator and Comedian Carl Ray
The fear and anxiety that came with a polio diagnosis was common and warranted due to the virus’ mystery and quarantine requirements. EducationMaker Karen Hill-Scott (1946 - ) describes the moment when she learned of her polio diagnosis at age four. She says, “I can remember them telling my mother I had polio. And, both my parents were devastated. My father was more upset. My mother was crying and, you know, I was crying 'cause they had to leave me there in the hospital overnight. And, I was in a room … in one of these metal cribs, and I couldn't keep anything with me. They couldn't take anything I had brought with me home.” Hill- Scott can also recount the panic and caution that existed in daily life at the time. “I can remember the advertisements that came on television and on the radio, ‘Don't let your children overexert themselves.’...I guess they thought that overexertion would weaken your resistance... And, of course, how are you gonna restrain a child from playing? I can remember being out riding my bike, coming in sweating, and my mother saying, ‘Oh, no ...you've done too much."
Educator and Education Consultant Karen Hill-Scott
However, help was on the horizon. EntertainmentMaker Adam Wade (1935 -) worked on the polio vaccination along with Dr. Jonas Salk. Dr. Salk is now lauded as one of the first virologists to succeed at creating a polio vaccine in March of 1953. The vaccination came as a relief not only to the United States, but to citizens worldwide. Wade, describes the goals and aims of Dr. Salk’s vaccine when he said, “Dr. Jonas Salk had the idea that once he discovered this vaccine, he could go to the government and say, ‘This is it. This is the formula. Make enough to give everybody in the world a shot and then it's gone.’” However, this dream proved more difficult than expected. “It didn't work that way, unfortunately. So, polio still resides in a lot of countries and stuff where it could just be eradicated.” Today, polio is largely eradicated, with only 2 cases so far in 2021.
Actor, singer, and stage producer Adam Wade
My research on polio has largely impacted my perspective on the currency COVID pandemic and the new Delta variant. The testimony of the aforementioned HistoryMakers makes it apparent that our current public health crisis is but a return to the past. So how do we learn from our past experiences? What can be done to ensure COVID meets the same eradicable end as polio? The answer is glaringly clear: we must continue to vaccinate. My favorite quote from this week’s research comes from Mrs. Hill-Scott, and acts as both an anecdote and a warning. “I remember when the vaccine came out. My mother wanted to take me, made sure everybody had the vaccine and I would have it too, 'cause I, she didn't want this to happen again.”
Sources
Individual Rights vs the Public's Health. NMAH | Polio: Communities. (2005, February 1). https://amhistory.si.edu/polio/americanepi/communities.htm.
NMAH: Polio: Families and individuals. NMAH | Polio: Families and Individuals. (2005, February 1). https://amhistory.si.edu/polio/americanepi/families.htm.
Nyc Polio Epidemic Graph. New York City Polio Epidemic | History of Vaccines. (n.d.). https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/new-york-city-polio-epidemic.
World Health Organization. (n.d.). Statement following the Twenty-Eighth IHR Emergency Committee for polio. World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/news/item/21-05-2021-statement-following-the-twenty-eighth-ihr-emergency-committee-for-polio#:~:text=Wild%20poliovirus,-The%20Committee%20noted&text=The%20number%20of%20WPV1%20cases,the%20same%20period%20in%202021.
