Numbers and the Pandemic of 2020

There are 4,597 people living in my town.  When people talk about numbers, a half a million people confirmed cases, or my state, 48,000 cases, or when New York talks about 500 dead today down from a high over the weekend of 700.  When they talk about a couple of trillion dollars in stimulus money, the numbers can hardly reach you.  A friend of mine likes to say "it's only a fraction of one percent in the world..."
But when I think of the number of people in my small town where I have lived in peace and comfort and contentment for 35 years, I imagine if they said 4,597 people died and it was every single one of us in my town, it would have a far greater impact.  If I thought Rob and Debby in the car repair died, and Mark and his mother,Linda, across the street, or Mike Hughes who works for the Borough across the street and once got a cat down out of a tree for some little girls in my yard, or the two young women who moved in next door a year ago and who brought me two shopping bags of toilet paper when the local grocery ran out, and the dogs I know from walking my dog every day, then it all takes on a different view.
This is a living historic moment, the "Pandemic of 2020" and everyone will remember it, far longer than a black-out, or ice storm, or even a hurricane.  We are living in the eye of a historic event, a monumental catastrophe, as great as one person's life ebbing away alone in a quarantined ICU, the end of one unique, unlimited potential for anything, gone; thirty years in the making and gone in three days.  There's a number to ponder, too, how quickly this killer can choke you to death if it gets a good grip.  People have seen their loved ones wheeled into the Emergency room on Friday and heard about their death on Monday, not even a chance to say goodbye or I love you.
We have been here before.  I just read an article about the War Bond Parade in Philadelphia that poured fuel on the fire of the Spanish Flu.  Imagine that, living in my home town during both a World War AND a pandemic!
Happy Trails through Time,
Jo Ann