I
don’t want to talk about my books today. Instead, I want to talk to you about
someone I never met. Her name was Emily. I know about Emily because her dad
does some contract work for me. When I called him yesterday, he told me that he
couldn’t come out right now. He was burying his seven-year-old daughter, Emily.
Emily
didn’t die from gun violence or cancer. Emily died from the flu. Let that soak
in for just a moment. Many of you reading this have probably called in sick to
work once or twice with the flu. We don’t think of it as a killing disease, not
in the twenty-first century, but people are dying of it today.
This
year is the 100th anniversary of the worst flu pandemic in known
history. In 1918, what is now known as the Spanish Flu killed between 50 and
100 million people. That’s a big spread, but records aren’t too reliable
because it was even killing people on remote islands. This flu was the H1N1
strain.
The
influenza virus that we are fighting today is H3N2. But it isn’t alone, H1N1 is
also present. The flu shot has been only 10% to 15% effective, though I’m not
exactly sure how they measure that. Take the shot or not, I have no idea
whether it will help you.
All
of that aside, how does a child, a seven-year-old little girl die of the flu in
this day-and-age? Are we still in the same medical darkness that we were 100
years ago when it comes to the flu? I understand that the strains change and
adapt, but shouldn’t we have been somehow ready for that? Don’t we have some
way to counter the devastating effects that it has on the body?
I’m
grieving for a child that I never met. I’m grieving for all of the people who
are dying of a disease that many of us get, suffer with for a few days, and then
forget about.
I
don’t blame anyone. Who is there to blame? I just don’t understand it. I see
all of the outrage when a madman takes lives, but I don’t see any when this
invisible killer that comes visiting every year takes thousands more.
Please
pray for Emily’s family.
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