Thread by @TheRealDoctorT

“I think it’s all hype. Young people are gonna be okay. It’s the flu, it’s gonna pass like every year. It’s Spring break, I’m 21. I’M FREE!!!”
- Beach-going vacationers, March 16th, 2020.

“Yeah I’m free... I’m free fallin’.”
-Tom Petty, “Free Fallin’.” 1989.

(A Thread) 1/

The personal protective equipment (PPE) feels heavier than it is. The mask is tight, forming a seal. It increases the work of breathing a little. The gloves are snug.

She is already sweating.

She steps from the ante room, across the threshold, into the isolation room. 2/

The hiss of negative pressure greets her. Her breathing seems loud in the mask, and she can smell her stale breath.

A chill runs through her, a thin blue flame flickering to life just beneath the surface.

There might be something else in this room.

An invisible predator. 3/

Fall 1918, St. Louis, Missouri.

The doctor is careful to make sure his mask is secure as he walks down the sidewalk.

Normally the streets would be bustling, but people are avoiding each other, staying home.

The city’s health commissioner has taken drastic measures. 4/

Schools, saloons, movie theaters, public gatherings, parades, all closed.

Churches suspend services.

The moves are unpopular, but a deadly disease is ravaging the world.

The doctor turns up the collar on his overcoat as he walks, feeling a chill in the brisk breeze. 5/

A slogan emblazoned on a large sheet of fabric hangs from a factory wall, flapping in the wind like a flag from distant shores:

“Cover up each cough and sneeze. If you don’t, you’ll spread the disease.”

People are being fined for violating quarantine.

The world is changing. 6/

There are those, even now, who think the danger is overblown.

The wartime media is being censored, to keep up morale. Spain is a neutral country, free from censorship, and as they report freely on the influenza pandemic, the US media points at them.

It’s the “Spanish Flu.” 7/

Except it really isn’t the Spanish flu. Research will someday suggest it originated in Kansas.

“Spanish flu” sounds far away.

All the doctor knows right now, is that other U.S. cities didn’t take the same measures as St. Louis.

Mass graves are being dug in Philadelphia. 8/

In the years to come, the measures being taken in St. Louis will become known as “social distancing.”

Social distancing is one of the reasons why after six months, Philadelphia has 16,000 deaths while St. Louis only has 700.

People are slow to react to unseen dangers. 9/

Even when Philadelphia finally closes schools and businesses, and as the mass graves are being dug, a newspaper prints this:

“This is not a public health measure. There is no cause for alarm.”

The doctor sighs as he finally reaches the hospital, and enters the front door. 10/

As he walks inside he is greeted warmly.

Beneath the mask, he allows himself a smile.

The truth is he feels helpless every day. He has seen things that haunt him, lingering.

But when he sees his team, those risking themselves alongside him, he is buoyed.

He dares to hope. 11/

Decades later, many years after the St. Louis doctor and all those he worked with are gone, she’s in an isolation room.

She focuses, suppressing her fear.

And she does her job.

Tomorrow the testing will come back negative. Either way, the tension lingers. 12/

Later that evening she’s sitting at a workstation. She has multiple windows open, with multiple websites tracking COVID-19 and projecting scenarios.

The numbers are cold. Unforgiving.

She looks away from them for a moment, sees the world around her.

The world she knows. 13/

People in all walks of life, in every area needed to make the hospital run.

Professionals in every field, doing the best they can with dedication, ingenuity, compassion.

Voices echoing through space and time.

The past is never far.

She feels buoyed.

And she dares to hope.