Letter to the editor: A pandemic history lesson

History should provide insight for directing resources toward activities that would alleviate repeating events, such as war and pandemics, that cause unbelievable physical and economic harm. One could argue the well- documented 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which killed millions and contributed to the economic disaster of 1929, should have been one of those lessons in where best to prioritize resources and government spending.

The 1918 pandemic should have caused unlimited resources be directed toward understanding the virus (covid-19 is of the same family), developing a medication to combat the illness and developing a vaccine for prevention.

History ignored, here we are again, human beings all over the world dying, and the economy in shambles, all because we did not properly prioritize our resources. One example (which I could cite many) is space exploration. The discoveries are fascinating, but spending billions when mankind is going to live and die on planet Earth, not the moon, Mars or some other object orbiting about a star light years away, is not proper prioritizing.

We need the creation of medication to combat known viruses and bacteria. We need vaccines to prevent the spread of pandemic illnesses. This is only possible if we learn from history and properly prioritize our resources.

Claude D. Frantz

Greensburg