19

The COVID-19 virus, more serious than the Spanish flu of 1917, will perhaps be remembered by Americans along with Pearl Harbor and 9/11. In the early months of the outbreak of the disease, the author, an observer of the confusion reigning on all continents about the nature of the beast, began to document its daily progress. Also recorded were the efforts made by elected officials, health-care providers, scientists and economists to thwart the death march of the contagion throughout the United States. Along the way, another ugliness, racism, had to be addressed. A virtual war against these stealth-like adversaries is presented in chronicle form in what Allen R. Remaley entitles, “19”. Sidebars caused by the stress of the pandemic are exposed. Insights, personal thoughts and daily updates, sometimes poignant, sometimes humorous, give us a record of this harbinger of death and hope.