2020 Hometown Heroes

Page 182 2020 Hometown HEROES Magazine LINCOLN DAILY NEWS May 14, 2020 book, Donath notes that there was a doctor – a doctor – in many of our small town communities. He also noted that the doctors were not immune to the disease and two, Dr. Paine of New Holland and Dr. Brock of Atlanta died of the flu. In addition, he noted that about half of the doctors in the county were called to the army camps. In the book, Donath quotes a paragraph quoted by Phil Bertoni in 2018 and written by Harry Van Hook: “Hit hard in Mt. Pulaski, too - Harry Van Hook writes in his book, ‘Three Miles From Salt Creek’, that his dad, Dr. Forrest Van Hook, was absent from his house for days going about the countryside treating the sick and dying. Harry writes that his dad told him he’d go into a farm house and most or all of the family would be sick in bed, with the dead children on the kitchen floor.” Today, Logan County has access to a number of doctors and specialists. While we perhaps still don’t have all the doctors we could use for the population of the county, the resources are much greater than they were in 1918. We do see a shortage in nurses and CNA’s not just in Logan County, but all around the country. However those that we do have are very well educated, with plenty of experience and compassion for the patients they care for. But looking back at 1918, the shortage of doctors, the lack of governmental leadship, and the “uneven” application of non-pharmaceutical interventions such as quarantines and shelter in place rules were factors that kept the disease rolling along for two years. Those factors were also all intertwined. With not enough doctors, family members attempted to take care of each other. Donath’s book offers accounts of people who traveled to be with a sick person in the family, only to come home with the influenza themselves. With no assistance from the government, businesses had a harder time keeping their doors closed, and would have to try to re-open, often times too soon. Donath wrote that there were three occasions in 1918 alone when quarantines and shelter in place appeared to be working, so people would get back to their normal routines, only to have the influenza come back. This is part of the history of the Spanish Flu that our federal and state leaders are taking to heart. We can’t go back to normal too soon. That is the reasoning behind the three phases on the return to normalcy. We are being asked to recognize that we can’t go back to the way we were on March 1st. We have been told we can’t jump back into society with both feet and full steam ahead. It’s a hard pill to swallow. Our local small businesses need to get back to work, but even this week our Governor has said that while the original Stay at Home order was scheduled to be lifted the end of April, he is debating whether or not that should happen. It may be hard for Logan County to understand, because we have proven to be the exception not the rule in the number of daily cases. But, perhaps we need to consider that the reason we are the exception and not the rule is because our citizens have done a good job of protecting ourselves and each other. CONTINUED u