After a horrible toll, some good will come of this

The world won’t be the same once we’re through the current battle against this deadly virus.

This isn’t simply media hyperbole. This epidemic is now affecting every country on our planet and thereby in some way, large or small, each individual. Given such massive scope, it would be foolhardy to imagine things will simply go back to normal, once that final body is buried or cremated.

Whilst writing this, the latest fatalities from Italy were announced — another 743 lives gone in a single, sad day. That’s a person lost every two minutes. The death toll in that country alone stands close to the 7,000 mark. Almost certainly, by the time you read this, that already dreadful number will be eclipsed.

Meanwhile, there’s an equally horrendous situation brewing in New York City, where those marvellous masses live cheek by jowl. Sadly, such human proximity leaves the Big Apple particularly at risk.

It is therefore of some selfish solace that here in Calgary the occasional civic push to increase inner-city housing density has generally fallen flat. So, living in one of the most spread-out cities on the planet is today a quite wonderful thing. The long commute it can entail is, frankly, no longer even a minor irritant.

Yes, global epidemics make us focus on things we’ve been blithely taking for granted for too long, some in place because of lucky circumstances of chance and others the result of smart folk with a particular clarity of vision. (That would not include Calgary’s planning department. Yep, the one that would love us cooped up like virus-emanating chickens.)

Today even the most mundane of actions, washing our hands, is undergoing a transformation. It once seemed little more than good manners. Now we’re told it could indeed be a matter of life or death.

(Being born skeptical, I had my doubts. But, after wading through the science regarding this COVID-19 thing, it makes total, if nasty, sense as this deadly bug is encased in a lipid membrane. So, destroy that — and soap cuts through fat superbly well — then you kill the beast. Sorry for being pedantic, but some people might be like me, needing a slap aside the head before accepting any message from officialdom.)

So, after we’ve beaten this current threat, regular handwashing will probably remain a much more important activity for many. It will for me, as will getting a regular flu jab from the pharmacist, something I’ve been too lazy and sure of my health to bother with. Stats would reveal I’m hardly alone in this, either.

Bizarre as it might now appear but — given that the same handwashing routine holds true for destroying regular viruses plus many more folk might get annual flu shots in future — eventually COVID-19 might end up saving more humans than it kills.

This isn’t flippancy. A century ago the

Spanish flu took the lives of 384 Calgarians, in a population of just 60,000, but in its wake spurred the movement for public health, along with making nursing a profession rather than a pastime.

When we watch Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, reassuring and educating everyone in such a calm and knowledgeable manner, such current professionalism can, in part, be traced back to its origins in 1919 Calgary.

That was then a city where people were dying from this strange influenza and hadn’t a clue what to do, other than wear masks and close down everywhere folk regularly gathered.

Heck, go back even further to mid-14th-century Europe and then trace the results of the Black Death, which carried off perhaps half of that continent’s inhabitants in a mere handful of years. But it also broke forever the feudal system. With labour at a premium, the lords of those manors now needed to pay a living wage instead of indentureship and virtual slavery.

Change is afoot. First, though, we have to survive. So, wash your darn hands.

Chris Nelson is a regular columnist for the Calgary Herald.

Eventually, COVID-19 might end up saving more humans than it kills.