PROLOGUE:
In twenty-twenty or the year prior,
A virus was the modifier.
It ran the world and did its best
To kill Chinese and all the rest.
It changed the world we’d come to know
As Death turned joy into our woe.
The world back then had a new plague
As lethal as a Black Death phage,
But this one altered human cells.
The sounds we heard were great death knells.
The virus COVID-19 spread,
While in its wake we suffered dread.
Each day we heard the grimmest tolls,
A longer list, departed souls.
Was this the end of humankind?
Would anyone be left behind?
Like other news, it had town criers,
Some spoke true; others, liars.
I think this day in young September,
Of a tale we won’t remember;
Some newsmen wrote of lines of sick,
Who stood outside the health care center,
The newsmen said they could not enter
Because John Bull gave Ivermectin
As though it were a simple pectin.
Another story, false not true,
Enough, however, to stick like glue.
Once out a story does take hold,
The pundits think that they’ve struck gold.
When we look back, what will we see?
We drank the vinegar, not chablis?
When all is written years from now,
Will we then know who did allow
A deadly virus to escape
And human culture to reshape?
And will we see how we had acted
As lives and business were impacted?
THE PAN-EPIC
Should a pandemic be declared
For number sick or number scared?
Let’s take some numbers for a drive
To see what newsmen can derive.
We’ll go to inns that cure the sick
The ICUs that do the trick.
We’ll see the “overwhelming facts”
That forced us into unfree acts
Like closing schools and lots of stores,
The businesses like mine and yours.
“We have some facts behind the curtain
“The COVID cases: These are certain.
“In winter back some months ago
“We saw the Alpha variant grow.
“And yet, among the kids we know
“The numbers were so very low.
“More recently those numbers peaked
“That got us newsmen highly freaked.
“We need to publish numbers now
“And tell the people news so foul
“They tremble at each others’ sight
“When some wear masks and others might.
“The data show what all should know
“Formidable our viral foe.
Officials say that Death’s upon us,
Deutschland’s Spahn makes quite a fuss.
In other countries, it is the same,
All are Faucis with different name.
They beg us all to be wise:
“The unvaccinated is he who dies.
“It takes the old; it takes the weak.
“This disease makes life quite bleak.”
Befuddled readers now abound.
“Should I go out and walk around?
“What are the numbers of which you speak?
“And do they count the strong and weak?
“Is there some med I should take
“A prophylactic that’s not fake?
“Help me please; I’m very frightened;
“You seem to be the one enlightened.”
The fear is real; the newsmen know.
“We’ve got ourselves quite a show.”
And so from newsroom to TV:
“The gurneys line up in a quay.”
“We work our way through all Greek letters;
“Alpha first took all our betters;
“The old that died before their time,
“And others, too, just in their prime.”
An alphabet of killers now
From A to D; Greece to Macao.
“The Delta kids hospitalized
“Began this month to see a rise.
“Some 9.8 per tenth of million
“Now breathe with help; these are civilian.
“And of those so hospitalized,
“One point eight have really died.
“One point eight per tenth of million,
“Our anger turns us to vermillion.
“Whom can we blame, who’s at fault?
“How can we get this all to halt?”
While in back rooms, we hear discussed
“How can we make them all nonplussed?
“We’ll show them that each one in four
“Of kids that walk through doctor’s door,
“And of those now in ICU
“We count much more, not less or few.
“That’s a number that scares them, sure;
“We will warrant facts and adjure
“That they are never circumspect,
“That they are numbers we can respect
“Yes, we’ll show kids twelve and more
“With Delta likely pass Death’s door.”
But still the readers seek to reason:
“Is this worse than each flu season?
“Is there really a big change
“As the Delta data range
“Like numbers that the flu makes sick,
“Or is this just a data trick?
“Where did you get your numbers from,
“How’d you subtract; how count the sum?
“Are these the numbers absolute,
“Do they reveal disease acute?”
The newsmen pound their drums much louder,
Their news is like some lit gunpowder.
“The children now have the infection
And worse there’s now a new projection,
That in the fall of one and twenty
They’’ll be more; they’ll be plenty.
“But if we’re frank, we have to say
“No stats we cite should you dismay.
“A study found that for Greek letters,
“The Delta is not the one that betters.
“Though current data show Delta worse,
“Than Alpha was. Despite the burst,
“The cases do not signify,
“That Delta kids more likely die.
“The jury’s out; the data’s thin;
“But we’ll shout and make a din”
“If in this year of twenty-one
“Each ICU is overrun.
“We’ll let you know; we’ll then broadcast,
“We hope to keep psyches aghast.
“We won’t make light of what we see
“Some children die; all do agree.
“Sure, we might have stretched the truth
“But COVID sure attacks our youth.
“If what we say makes you afraid,
“We’ve done our job; we have conveyed.
“We spread our news just like the virus,
“We’ll use TV; we’ll use papyrus.”
The public still in quandary lie,
Will each of us be next to die?
“As we suspected, as we thought,
“The deaths are not what you have taught.
“And yet we can’t manipulate,
“That some have died as of this date.”
“That’s true, we guess, and one point eight
“Is one too many if that’s the rate,
“And even if point eight’s a few,
“It’s a tragic number, too.
“So, you report and we decide
“If what we think is truth or pride.
“Reality is hard to know
“When some conflicting data show
“The jabbed are just as feebly weak
“In recent news that is so bleak
“About the fully vaccinated,
“About those masks so fully hated.
“You preached that herds would be immune,
“That was your song; that was your tune.
“We heard that soon as all are pricked,
“The virus won’t with Death inflict
“The human race. Vaccines will save
“Us all from yet another wave.
“Yet, now we hear of some breakthrough,
“A new mutant, this one called ‘mu.’”
The public now does some research,
And some facts do the news besmirch.
“Here are the words researchers write
“About this COVID Delta’s blight:
“Because the recent number’s small
“We can’t say that we trust them all.
“At the time, though, this seems true,
“That some respond as to the flu;
“Some get sick, and others don’t
“Some get jabbed, and others won’t.”
“This mess is something, that’s for sure
“When data smell just like manure.
“In June the numbers were quite low,
“Point O three kids, no overflow,
“In August now, the number’s higher,
“Some one point four, if you aren’t liar.
“So, I looked at what was said,
“Three years ago about the dead.
“From late teens to twenty-four
“One point seven died, not more.
“Per hundred thousand every year,
“We always lose those we hold dear.
“Between the ages 5 and 9,
“Eleven point six in death recline.
“From ten to ten plus four
“Some 15 knock on Reaper’s door.
“That’s quite a loss you never write,
“You only state the COVID blight.
“You’ve made this tragedy a fright.
“We’ve listened and then listened more,
“Become accustomed to hear a score,
“As though we watch a game you play,
“You revel as the COVIDs slay.
“When we look back, what will we see
“That you put blame on all and me,
“As though there was no human cause,
“A lab, a diet, or anchor’s hawse,
“Some site where all COVID started,
“Where first we learned of the departed.”
Will this tale become an epic
About the deadliest pandemic?
Will the tale in some years hence
Beget in us some common sense?
Or will this tale always renew
The fear that runs us now quite through.
And will we hear from calmer voices
That still allow for different choices?
Whatever lessons we must learn
Must keep us from a funeral urn,
But short of that, reduce the fear
That stems from facts that are unclear.
Will future leaders be aware,
And the people then prepare
For more than closures of all kinds
And work for cures and calmer minds?
Some Melville hence will sing this tale,
A sickness now become White Whale.
He’ll sing of newsmen, all new Ahabs,
That from the lowlands to the Punjabs
Will chase the tales that scare us most,
Like COVID turning us to ghost.
I’ll leave you now with one more thought,
What might have been is just an ought.
The world we thought would never change,
Has now become for us quite strange.
Is there naught to hold together?
Does life just shift as the weather?
We can’t get back the lives we lost,
Or the businesses that cost
The wealth of many to decline.
“Rejoice,” I say, and “do not pine.
“One constant was the news deadline.”
In twenty-twenty or the year prior,
A virus was the modifier.
It ran the world and did its best
To kill Chinese and all the rest.
It changed the world we’d come to know
As Death turned joy into our woe.
The world back then had a new plague
As lethal as a Black Death phage,
But this one altered human cells.
The sounds we heard were great death knells.
The virus COVID-19 spread,
While in its wake we suffered dread.
Each day we heard the grimmest tolls,
A longer list, departed souls.
Was this the end of humankind?
Would anyone be left behind?
Like other news, it had town criers,
Some spoke true; others, liars.
I think this day in young September,
Of a tale we won’t remember;
Some newsmen wrote of lines of sick,
Who stood outside the health care center,
The newsmen said they could not enter
Because John Bull gave Ivermectin
As though it were a simple pectin.
Another story, false not true,
Enough, however, to stick like glue.
Once out a story does take hold,
The pundits think that they’ve struck gold.
When we look back, what will we see?
We drank the vinegar, not chablis?
When all is written years from now,
Will we then know who did allow
A deadly virus to escape
And human culture to reshape?
And will we see how we had acted
As lives and business were impacted?
THE PAN-EPIC
Should a pandemic be declared
For number sick or number scared?
Let’s take some numbers for a drive
To see what newsmen can derive.
We’ll go to inns that cure the sick
The ICUs that do the trick.
We’ll see the “overwhelming facts”
That forced us into unfree acts
Like closing schools and lots of stores,
The businesses like mine and yours.
“We have some facts behind the curtain
“The COVID cases: These are certain.
“In winter back some months ago
“We saw the Alpha variant grow.
“And yet, among the kids we know
“The numbers were so very low.
“More recently those numbers peaked
“That got us newsmen highly freaked.
“We need to publish numbers now
“And tell the people news so foul
“They tremble at each others’ sight
“When some wear masks and others might.
“The data show what all should know
“Formidable our viral foe.
Officials say that Death’s upon us,
Deutschland’s Spahn makes quite a fuss.
In other countries, it is the same,
All are Faucis with different name.
They beg us all to be wise:
“The unvaccinated is he who dies.
“It takes the old; it takes the weak.
“This disease makes life quite bleak.”
Befuddled readers now abound.
“Should I go out and walk around?
“What are the numbers of which you speak?
“And do they count the strong and weak?
“Is there some med I should take
“A prophylactic that’s not fake?
“Help me please; I’m very frightened;
“You seem to be the one enlightened.”
The fear is real; the newsmen know.
“We’ve got ourselves quite a show.”
And so from newsroom to TV:
“The gurneys line up in a quay.”
“We work our way through all Greek letters;
“Alpha first took all our betters;
“The old that died before their time,
“And others, too, just in their prime.”
An alphabet of killers now
From A to D; Greece to Macao.
“The Delta kids hospitalized
“Began this month to see a rise.
“Some 9.8 per tenth of million
“Now breathe with help; these are civilian.
“And of those so hospitalized,
“One point eight have really died.
“One point eight per tenth of million,
“Our anger turns us to vermillion.
“Whom can we blame, who’s at fault?
“How can we get this all to halt?”
While in back rooms, we hear discussed
“How can we make them all nonplussed?
“We’ll show them that each one in four
“Of kids that walk through doctor’s door,
“And of those now in ICU
“We count much more, not less or few.
“That’s a number that scares them, sure;
“We will warrant facts and adjure
“That they are never circumspect,
“That they are numbers we can respect
“Yes, we’ll show kids twelve and more
“With Delta likely pass Death’s door.”
But still the readers seek to reason:
“Is this worse than each flu season?
“Is there really a big change
“As the Delta data range
“Like numbers that the flu makes sick,
“Or is this just a data trick?
“Where did you get your numbers from,
“How’d you subtract; how count the sum?
“Are these the numbers absolute,
“Do they reveal disease acute?”
The newsmen pound their drums much louder,
Their news is like some lit gunpowder.
“The children now have the infection
And worse there’s now a new projection,
That in the fall of one and twenty
They’’ll be more; they’ll be plenty.
“But if we’re frank, we have to say
“No stats we cite should you dismay.
“A study found that for Greek letters,
“The Delta is not the one that betters.
“Though current data show Delta worse,
“Than Alpha was. Despite the burst,
“The cases do not signify,
“That Delta kids more likely die.
“The jury’s out; the data’s thin;
“But we’ll shout and make a din”
“If in this year of twenty-one
“Each ICU is overrun.
“We’ll let you know; we’ll then broadcast,
“We hope to keep psyches aghast.
“We won’t make light of what we see
“Some children die; all do agree.
“Sure, we might have stretched the truth
“But COVID sure attacks our youth.
“If what we say makes you afraid,
“We’ve done our job; we have conveyed.
“We spread our news just like the virus,
“We’ll use TV; we’ll use papyrus.”
The public still in quandary lie,
Will each of us be next to die?
“As we suspected, as we thought,
“The deaths are not what you have taught.
“And yet we can’t manipulate,
“That some have died as of this date.”
“That’s true, we guess, and one point eight
“Is one too many if that’s the rate,
“And even if point eight’s a few,
“It’s a tragic number, too.
“So, you report and we decide
“If what we think is truth or pride.
“Reality is hard to know
“When some conflicting data show
“The jabbed are just as feebly weak
“In recent news that is so bleak
“About the fully vaccinated,
“About those masks so fully hated.
“You preached that herds would be immune,
“That was your song; that was your tune.
“We heard that soon as all are pricked,
“The virus won’t with Death inflict
“The human race. Vaccines will save
“Us all from yet another wave.
“Yet, now we hear of some breakthrough,
“A new mutant, this one called ‘mu.’”
The public now does some research,
And some facts do the news besmirch.
“Here are the words researchers write
“About this COVID Delta’s blight:
“Because the recent number’s small
“We can’t say that we trust them all.
“At the time, though, this seems true,
“That some respond as to the flu;
“Some get sick, and others don’t
“Some get jabbed, and others won’t.”
“This mess is something, that’s for sure
“When data smell just like manure.
“In June the numbers were quite low,
“Point O three kids, no overflow,
“In August now, the number’s higher,
“Some one point four, if you aren’t liar.
“So, I looked at what was said,
“Three years ago about the dead.
“From late teens to twenty-four
“One point seven died, not more.
“Per hundred thousand every year,
“We always lose those we hold dear.
“Between the ages 5 and 9,
“Eleven point six in death recline.
“From ten to ten plus four
“Some 15 knock on Reaper’s door.
“That’s quite a loss you never write,
“You only state the COVID blight.
“You’ve made this tragedy a fright.
“We’ve listened and then listened more,
“Become accustomed to hear a score,
“As though we watch a game you play,
“You revel as the COVIDs slay.
“When we look back, what will we see
“That you put blame on all and me,
“As though there was no human cause,
“A lab, a diet, or anchor’s hawse,
“Some site where all COVID started,
“Where first we learned of the departed.”
Will this tale become an epic
About the deadliest pandemic?
Will the tale in some years hence
Beget in us some common sense?
Or will this tale always renew
The fear that runs us now quite through.
And will we hear from calmer voices
That still allow for different choices?
Whatever lessons we must learn
Must keep us from a funeral urn,
But short of that, reduce the fear
That stems from facts that are unclear.
Will future leaders be aware,
And the people then prepare
For more than closures of all kinds
And work for cures and calmer minds?
Some Melville hence will sing this tale,
A sickness now become White Whale.
He’ll sing of newsmen, all new Ahabs,
That from the lowlands to the Punjabs
Will chase the tales that scare us most,
Like COVID turning us to ghost.
I’ll leave you now with one more thought,
What might have been is just an ought.
The world we thought would never change,
Has now become for us quite strange.
Is there naught to hold together?
Does life just shift as the weather?
We can’t get back the lives we lost,
Or the businesses that cost
The wealth of many to decline.
“Rejoice,” I say, and “do not pine.
“One constant was the news deadline.”
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