Coronavirus / COVID-19

by William H. Benson

February 20, 2020

In October of last year, Eric Toner, a scientist at Johns Hopkins, ran a simulation of a pandemic of a coronavirus. After six months, his simulation indicated that all countries would report cases of the virus, and that the virus would end the lives of 65 million people, a chilling and alarming estimate.

Toner was not shocked when he heard in January that a coronavirus had appeared in Wuhan, in Hubei Province, in China. He said, “It’s part of the world we live in now. It’s the age of epidemics.”

On Feb. 11, 2020, the World Health Organization gave this novel coronavirus a name, COVID-19. The 19 refers to the year 2019, when it first appeared.

On Dec. 31, 2019, four Wuhan residents were admitted to the hospital with influenza-like symptoms, sore throats, headaches, and severe pneumonia. If untreated, septic shock and multi-organ failure would result. As of mid-February, the coronavirus has infected tens of thousands, with little signs of slowing down.

This new coronavirus resembles the 2003 outbreak of SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, that infected 8,098 people in 37 countries, and ended the lives of 774 people before health officials contained it. SARS also began in China, but in Guangdong province.

Both SARS and now COVID-19 first infected people who visited China’s wet markets. These are open-air markets where sellers sell live and dead animals, both domesticated and wild.

Chickens, for example, arrive in cages, and the sellers butcher them in front of the buyers. Fish are sliced open and gutted on the market’s floor. Skinned hares hang from strings attached to metal frames. Exotic animals caught deep in China’s forests are brought to the wet market where they are butchered.

The wet markets bring animals and humans together in congested areas, creating ideal conditions for zoonosis, or “spillover,” a point when a microbe jumps from animal to human.

Health officials have determined that human beings first caught the SARS virus from a weasel-like mammal called a masked palm civet, and they are convinced now that men and women first caught COVID-19 from pangolins, an animal that looks like a cross between an anteater and an armadillo.

“A group of researchers from South China Agricultural University found that samples from infected coronavirus patients and pangolins were 99% identical.”

Both of those spillovers from those two animal reservoirs occurred at a Chinese wet market.

Officials are confident though that it was first bats that infected the masked palm civet and also the pangolin. The virus in both cases jumped from bats to wild animals to men and women, who then, in turn, infected others through a cough or a sneeze.

“It is no coincidence that some of the worst viral disease outbreaks in recent years—SARS, MERS, Ebola, Marburg, and the COVID-19—originated in bats.”

What is it about bats and viruses?

Scientists have discovered that bat cells are unique, in that they are on constant alert for a foreign intruder, like a virus. “Viral infection in these bats leads to a swift response that walls the virus out of cells.” The bat’s cells will erect cellular barricades that block the virus from penetrating into the cell.

Although not infected itself, the bat carries the virus. “It becomes a unique reservoir of rapidly reproducing and highly transmissible viruses.” It infects others through its saliva, urine, or feces.

Because human beings’ cells do not display that same skill at blocking out a virus, a man or woman’s cells will succumb to the coronavirus’s attack without offering sufficient resistance.

A coronavirus exists at a midpoint between alive and not alive. Inside, it carries certain genetic material, either DNA or RNA, and on its surface is a protective coating that features numerous spikes pointed outwards, giving it a crown-like appearance, hence its name, “corona,” Latin for crown.

This virus cannot move, thrive, or reproduce on its own. Instead, it strives to enter into a host animal’s cells and replicate itself there again and again, until it ends the host’s life.

The estimate of 65 million dead that Toner’s simulation arrived at is not far-fetched. The Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918, due to the H1N1influenza virus, killed at least 15 million and possibly as many as 100 million, mostly young men and women in the prime of their lives.

As of mid-February, the coronavirus COVID-19 has ended the lives of a little more than 1,000 people, a figure greater than SARS’s total death count.

Health officials will continue to contain its spread “through quarantines, disease surveillance, and emphasizing rigorous hygiene practices,” but at this time, no one knows how many will succumb? A vaccine may require months or years of development. We now live in “the age of epidemics.”

Queen Elizabeth II

by William H. Benson

February 5, 2020

After George VI, King of England, passed away on Feb. 6, 1952, his eldest daughter, Elizabeth, then just 25, became Queen Elizabeth II on that day, although her coronation at Westminster Abbey did not occur for another 16 months, not until June 2, 1953.

As of this week, Elizabeth has completed 68 years as Queen, and she will turn 94 on April 21, 2020.

On Sept. 9, 2015, Elizabeth became the longest reigning monarch ever, when she surpassed Queen Victoria’s total number of days on the throne. On February 6, 2017, Elizabeth became the first British monarch to celebrate a Sapphire Jubilee, completing 65 years as the royal head of state.

On Nov. 20, 1947, when Elizabeth was just 21, she married Prince Philip Mountbatten. The royal couple celebrated their 72nd wedding anniversary last November. He is now 98. In 2017, he retired from active royal duties and lives a quiet life at the family’s Sandringham estate in Norfolk.

With Philip, Elizabeth produced four children: Charles, Anne, Andrew, and Edward.

The three oldest married, but then later divorced, Charles from Lady Diana, Anne from Mark Phillips, and Andrew from Sarah Ferguson. Edward though still remains married to his wife, Sophie.

Charles then remarried Camilla, Anne remarried Timothy Laurence, but Andrew remains single, although he and Sarah Ferguson share a residence at the family’s Royal Lodge in Windsor.

Prince Charles, heir apparent to the throne, turned 71 last November.

Each of the Queen’s four children produced two children of their own. Charles and Lady Diana had William and Harry. Anne and Mark Phillips had Peter and Zara Phillips. Andrew and Sarah Ferguson had two girls, Beatrice and Eugenie, and Edward and Sophie had Louise and James.

Thus, the Queen has eight grandchildren, four boys and four girls. Of those eight, Charles’ eldest son, William, is second in the line of succession to Great Britain’s throne. Lady Diana gave birth to William on June 21, 1982. He was 15 on Aug. 31, 1997, the day his mother died in a tragic car crash in Paris, France, when fleeing the paparazzi. He is now 37.

William met Catherine Middleton, or Kate, when both attended the University of St. Andrews, in St. Andrews, Scotland, fifty miles north of Edinburgh and the birthplace of golf. They began dating in 2003, and they married on April 29, 2011, also at Westminster Abbey.

Kate gave birth to Prince George, her firstborn son, on July 22, 2013. Now 6 ½, he is third in the line of succession to the throne, and would claim the title King George VII should he take the throne. Kate also gave birth to Princess Charlotte on May 2, 2015, and to Prince Louis on April 23, 2018.

Charles’ second son, Harry, was born on Sept. 15, 1984, and he was 13 when his mother, Lady Diana, was killed. Harry is now 35. He married Meghan Markle, a divorced bi-racial American actress, on May 19, 2018, and she gave birth to a baby boy, Archie Harrison, on May 6, 2019.

Beginning in Nov. of 2019, Harry and Meghan took a six-week break from royal duties, and celebrated Christmas at a luxurious waterfront mansion on Vancouver Island, in British Columbia, Canada, rather than with the Queen and her extended family in the UK.

Then, on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2020, Harry announced that he and Meghan will “step away from ‘senior’ royal roles and will work toward becoming financially independent. They will now divide their time between Britain and North America.”

The couple agreed to surrender their “Her Royal Highness” titles when they would represent the Queen, although they will retain their designations as Duke and Duchess of Sussex. They also agreed that when in the UK, they will reside in their home, Frogmore Cottage, but they want to repay the £2.4 million of public funds spent to refurbish the Cottage on their behalf.

Reporters have now confirmed that the couple want to purchase a home in Los Angeles, California, Meghan’s hometown, and live there this summer. Meghan may want to return to acting soon.

Then, on Nov. 20, 2019, Prince Andrew, the Queen’s second son, withdrew from his public duties because of intense negative reaction following a television interview on the BBC that focused on his connection with the convicted sex offender, the American Jeffrey Epstein.

The scandal forced the Queen to ask Andrew to move his private office out of Buckingham Palace.

Then, on Friday, Jan. 31, the UK withdrew from the European Union. After months of debate, Brexit finally happened. Who knows what will occur in the weeks and months ahead?

A country and a royal family that takes the Mountbatten-Windsor family name. Royalty does not exempt a family from divorces, a tragic death, a dissatisfied daughter-in-law, or a scandal.

Time’s illusions

by William H. Benson

January 24, 2020

Mother Nature builds chunks of time: a day, a month, a year.

From one sunup to the next defines a day.

One full moon to another full moon—29 ½ days—defines a month. On occasion though, two full moons will fit inside a 30 or 31 day calendar, and that second full moon becomes a Blue Moon. Our next Blue Moon will occur this year, in 2020, on Oct. 31, Halloween.

Nature dictates that a year shall last 365 ¼ days. For three consecutive years, we live 365 days, but then during leap year, the fourth year, we gather the four extra quarters into an extra day, Feb. 29. This year, 2020, is a leap year.

Human beings though have constructed additional blocks of time: the second, the minute, the hour, the week. Wise men from ancient Babylon divided a day into 24 hour slots, an hour into 60 minute units, and a minute into 60 second units, each derived from a base 12 system.

The length of a week though is arbitrary. The ancient Aztecs relied upon two weeks, one that included 13 days and another that included 20 days, and the two worked together.

The ancient Romans looked forward to their “nundinae,” the week’s final eighth day, market day, a tentative weekend, but it was Constantine, Rome’s emperor in 321 A.D., who adopted the seven-day week, due to influence from the East.

Because Christians celebrated the Lord’s Day on Sunday, Constantine set Sunday as the first day of the week, and because the Hebrew people celebrated the Sabbath on Saturday, the week’s seventh day, he set Saturday as the week’s final day. I agree, seven days is sufficient time for a week.

English-speaking people still honor the sun on the week’s first day, the moon on its second day, and certain other ancient gods on its other five days.

The ancient Anglo-Saxons paid homage to a god of war named Tui, and the Vikings had a god of war named Tyr. One or both contributed to the name Tuesday. The Anglo-Saxons’ chief god though was Woden, and we honor him mid-week, on Wednesday.

Thursday refers to Thor, the ancient Vikings’ god of thunder; Friday pays homage to Freya, the Teutonic goddess of love and beauty; and Saturday looks back to Saturn, the Roman god of agriculture.

What is unusual is that Spanish-speaking people call the week’s last day “sabado,” a reference to the ancient Hebrew people’s Sabbath.

We began a new year four weeks ago, in this month of January, although the ancient Romans began their new year in March, near the vernal equinox, in the springtime. A common belief holds that January derives its name from Janus, the two-faced Roman god that has one face looking to the left, back into the past, and a second face looking to the right, forward into the future.

Yet, certain ancient Roman farmers’ almanacs state that January derives its name from Juno, the goddess of marriage and childbirth, wife of Jupiter, and the queen god. From her we also get June.

A new year beckons us forward. Time—as measured in days, weeks, and months—stretches before us. Yet, time belongs to no one. It is a gift from the gods, or from Mother Nature, or the amazing fact that we are here, alive, together on planet Earth, and we wake up every morning.

If we master the seconds, minutes, and hours of our lives, we master the days, months, and years. Along the way, we learn some things, or, as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “The years teach us things that the days never knew.”

The English poet, William Blake, wrote, “Eternity is in love with the productions of time. The hours of folly are measur’d by the clock, but of wisdom: no clock can measure.”

Emerson also wrote an astonishing essay that he entitled, “Illusions.” He says that, “Every god is there sitting in his sphere. The young mortal enters the hall of the firmament; there is he alone with the gods alone. On the instant fall snowstorms of illusions.

“He fancies himself in a vast crowd which sways this way and that and whose movement and doings he must obey. What is he that he should resist their will, and think or act for himself.

“And when, by and by, for an instant, the air clears and the cloud lifts a little, there are the gods still sitting around him on their thrones—they alone with him alone.”

Oh, yes, time can seem an illusion. It jogs for the young, it sprints for the adult. We grip time and ride it as well as we can, but time slips away before we want it to. We wonder, how to slow down time?

I say, enjoy the year 2020, each second, minute, day, week, and month.

The Thirteenth Amendment

by William H. Benson

December 18, 2019

On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, and by it, he declared that “all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious states “are and henceforward shall be free.” Lincoln’s Proclamation freed some 3.1 million slaves within the Confederacy.

Eric Foner, historian and author of a recent book, The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution, said that Lincoln’s Proclamation was “the largest act of slave emancipation in world history. Never before had so many slaves been declared free.”

Yet, Lincoln’s Proclamation did not include the 800,000 slaves within the five border states—Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Missouri—those states that favored slavery but had refused to join the Southern states’ Confederacy.

Also, Lincoln feared that a future president might issue a proclamation that would undo his, or the courts may declare his unconstitutional.

As a result, some legislators in the Republican-held Congress insisted that now was the time to introduce an amendment to the Constitution that would eradicate and abolish slavery once and for all.

Lincoln came late to the campaign for a thirteenth amendment that would abolish slavery.

Instead, he argued for gradual emancipation, one state at a time, coupled with federal funds granted to slaveowners for the loss of their property, plus colonization, encouraging former slaves to migrate to Africa or Haiti or Central America, an idea that few slaves embraced.

Lincoln understood that to add an amendment to the Constitution was “a complex and cumbersome process.” The last amendment, the twelfth, was added in 1804, sixty years before. Also, the process is spearheaded by Congress and the state governments, with no presidential signature required.

On April 8, 1864, the Senate passed a resolution for a Thirteenth Amendment by a vote of 38 to 6.

Section 1 read, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Thirty-two words to abolish 250 years of “unrequited labor.”

Section 2 read, “Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

The amendment fails to mention anything about compensation to former slaveowners and nothing about colonization. Instead, this was a legal measure meant to strike at the very heart of slavery.

In June of 1864, the amendment came to a vote in the House, but only 93 Representatives voted for it, not nearly the required two-thirds. It was then that Lincoln began to lobby hard for the amendment.

At one point just days prior to the decisive and close vote on January 31, 1865, Lincoln called two members of the House to the White House, and told them that they must procure two additional votes.

“How?” they asked.

He replied, “I am President of the U.S., clothed with great power. The abolition of slavery by constitutional provision settles the fate, for all coming time, not only of the millions now in bondage, but of unborn millions to come. Those two votes must be procured. I leave it to you to determine how it shall be done, but remember that I am President of the U.S., clothed with immense power.”

The final tally in the House was 119 to 56, two more than the required two-thirds. Wild applause broke out in the House when the votes were counted. Men wept, hugged each other, tossed their hats.

James S. Rollins, of Missouri, decided to vote for it, because Lincoln asked him to, and, as he said, “we can never have an entire peace in this country as long as the institution of slavery remains.”

Steven Spielberg’s 2012 movie, Lincoln, starring Daniel Day Lewis as Lincoln, dramatized this close vote for the Thirteenth Amendment in the House.

On February 1, Lincoln signed his name and wrote the word “Approved,” to the text of the joint resolution that Congress sent him, although his signature was unnecessary. The Thirteenth Amendment is the only ratified amendment that a president ever signed.

As a result, February 1 is celebrated in some communities as Freedom Day.

Then, beginning on February 1, each state took up the issue of ratification. Illinois ratified the amendment first, and in early December of 1865, Georgia voted to ratify it, the last of the necessary 27 states to do so.

On December 18, 1865, Secretary of State William Seward certified that the Thirteenth Amendment is now a part of the Constitution. Eric Foner though commented that, although the day is important in U.S. history, “December 18 has long been forgotten.” But slavery in the United States was gone.

Next time in these pages: the Fourteenth Amendment.