Lou’s View: THE HISTORY OF THE PANDEMIC
By Lou Bernard
As I write this, Clinton County is a Yellow County in the Coronavirus crisis. I assume it’s because everyone’s been staying home and watching the Simpsons; I haven’t really researched this all that much. Mostly I’ve been staying home with my son, trying to teach him survival skills and paranormal investigation. (The ghosts have been active, but we’ve seen no aliens. They’re apparently quarantined, too.)
I’ve done some writing about this crisis and past disasters, because what else have I had to do? And I’ve commented several times that one day, this event is going to be history, and someone like me will write about it in the future.
Recently I began to think: Why not me, right now? I’ll be the first history writer to write about the COVID-19 pandemic as local history. Another one of my articles about Clinton County, except way more recent than most of them.
As the virus spread, Clinton County became the fifth-last to show recorded cases. Counties throughout Pennsylvania fell one by one, with Clinton County holding out like the last guy standing in a bar fight. (Many people pointed out that no positive tests didn’t mean no virus; people probably had it and didn’t know. Look, don’t come and bother me with “probably.” I report what’s been proven, not what some people are guessing.)
As we went into lockdown, everyone responded by buying toilet paper. Did anyone ever figure out what the hell that was all about? I mean, canned food, fresh vegetables, and pasta sold out of the local grocery store entirely, as well, but what was the deal with the toilet paper? Suddenly and for no reason, toilet paper became the most sought-after luxury in the country. It’s been a couple of months now, and I’m still trying to wrap my head around it.
Clinton County finally reported the first case on April 3rd. By this point, I’d already been staying at home with my five-year-old for about two weeks. I’d spent April Fools’ Day trapped in the house with a child who thinks YouTube pranks are funny, and I was beginning to feel like the world couldn’t end soon enough.
The Ross Library, where I work, closed temporarily in mid-March. Look, with a virus spreading rapidly, you don’t want people passing a whole lot of books around. The library board chose to close the library, to keep people safe and prevent the virus from spreading. I got bored as hell staying at home for two months, but even I have to admit that wasn’t the biggest priority.
Lock Haven Mayor Joel Long wisely decided to close the playgrounds and restrict public access to the city-owned parks, because some people had the idea that the Coronavirus didn’t apply to local playgrounds. This turned out to be a good idea that probably saved some lives, and kept the noise down for a while.
Early on in April, the Wayne Township Landfill announced that they were suspending pickup of local recycling, which was understandable, but also problematic as I’d been drinking many cans of beer. (Ironically, I’d learned that alcohol use was up nationwide in a webinar I attended, as I drank red wine to get through the webinar.) I turned this to my advantage by putting my recycling to good use: I taught my son how to make fish hooks out of can tabs, camp stoves out of cans, and fish traps out of plastic bottles. So we were in good shape in case the local stores ran out of food, though I still hadn’t figured out the toilet paper thing.
On May 8, in Pennsylvania, the quarantine was lifted, and Clinton County was declared a “Yellow County,” meaning that we had a comparatively low number of positive tests. As I write this, we’re slowly beginning to open up again. With this column, I hope to be the first historian to write about the Coronavirus as a historic column. I hope I get this one in on time, as all the other local historians are sitting around scribbling their first drafts on toilet paper.
