A dog walk - into history click a visual to enlarge itEvery early morning I go for an hour's walk in the bush with our dog Bryn. Usually I meet other dog walkers and often two of us will stop and talk for a few minutes. Doing so is a bit odd these days as we back off from each other to keep the two metre coronavirus distance, then talk loudly across the gap. The conversations used to be about our dogs but now they are about our pandemic. The other day I met Katy No 2. When she talked about how strange this lockdown situation is for everyone, I said, "I've been in something like this before – the 1947-1948 polio epidemic. " "Really? That's interesting. You should write about it in your blog." In DunedinFollowing the long summer holidays, schools stayed closed. Lessons came through the mail. I remember opening the big envelopes. I remember sitting at the dining room table doing written work and I remember listening each day to the radio programme for my year. I liked the radio talks. I liked being at home too, even though I couldn't go and play with my friends. I hated the school I was at, so staying home was a great relief. Although there were further polio outbreaks in the coming years I don't think there were any more school closures after we resumed around Easter 1948. I had to endure that school for another three years until high school offered vast relief. In AucklandWhile I was at home in Dunedin during early 1948, my future wife, 8 year old Marion, was at home in Auckland. Here's what she remembers. "We didn’t call it poliomyelitis but rather infantile paralysis; a much more frightening term which suggested infants got it and could become paralysed.
We didn’t go back to ordinary school after the 1947-48 summer holidays. Instead, each day in The New Zealand Herald, our morning newspaper, there was a set of lessons taking up the entire centre pages. I was in Standard 2 and I greatly enjoyed finding my lessons. As I liked schoolwork, this was a novel way to go about something I enjoyed. After what seemed like a prolonged summer holiday (but no swimming was allowed) we started back at proper school about Easter. And fortunately, no one I knew caught the virus." FrighteningPolio was frightening. It was world wide. The 1947-48 epidemic was not the first in New Zealand nor the one with the most deaths. The first, in 1916, killed 123. The rage of 1925 had brought 173 deaths – the most ever; 1937 brought 39. Parents and the government at the end of 1947 were scared. They knew what had gone before and they feared a big one. And indeed this one spread slowly over the whole country, lasting well into 1949. Nine hundred and sixty three people were infected; 52 died. Parents feared their children would be crippled. Some were. I remember seeing children with callipers or braces on their legs. At my high school I remember a boy a year or two older than me who clumped about in a leg brace but who nonetheless was the first cricket eleven wicket keeper – behind the stumps he hurled himself about spectacularly. He was regarded as something of a hero. Slow end
HopeMarion and I, for the second time in our lives, are bound to home. Together this time – not at opposite ends of our country. In the 1940s we were in the age group from which many polio victims came. Now, seventy years later we are again in the victim prone grade – the over 70s. That's just the way it is. It makes me give a wry smile. People are concerned for us though. Every second person I meet on my dog walks wants to know if I'm okay. That's understandable. To date in New Zealand, all who have died of Covid 19 are over 60 and all but two are over 70. Since we must for now have Covid, Marion and I would rather it hit those of us in our dying years than those in young and mid-life. To protect those vital groups especially, I hope everyone will abide by the protective social measures governments are laying out, not just for a few weeks nor a few months but certainly until an effective vaccine is here for all. I wish all my readers well. □ John McInnes Friday 24 April 2020 Reference: please click the red text. JC Ross: A history of poliomyelitis in New Zealand ##########
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