Constable: Coronavirus rekindles memories of past fears, unknowns we have overcome

This Coronavirus Era is going to be remembered for the rest of our lives. All major sporting events abruptly coming to a halt. Schools closed and colleges sending students home. Nations essentially closing their borders. St. Patrick's Day a nonevent. Nursing homes prohibiting visitors. Conventions and vacations in ruins. The stock market plunging. More restrictions possible.

And fear is a growth industry.

You have to be well into your 90s to remember President Franklin D. Roosevelt's first inaugural address on March 4, 1933, in which he told the American people suffering through the Great Depression that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." That's all that is typically quoted, but FDR explained that he was talking about "nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror, which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."

The seeds of World War II were germinating overseas, but Roosevelt gave thanks that America's woes were generally confined to material things.

"Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone," he said.

A bit bleak for a politician whose campaign theme song was "Happy Days Are Here Again." It took sacrifice, rationing, a deadly war and more than a decade, but things did improve.

For people a bit too young to remember FDR, the coronavirus might rekindle memories of the polio scare, an ailment that FDR was diagnosed with at age 39.

"In the late 1940s, polio outbreaks in the U.S. increased in frequency and size, crippling an average of more than 35,000 people each year," reads the polio entry on the website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Parents were frightened to let their children go outside, especially in the summer when the virus seemed to peak. Travel and commerce between affected cities were sometimes restricted. Public health officials imposed quarantines (used to separate and restrict the movement of well people who may have been exposed to a contagious disease to see if they become ill) on homes and towns where polio cases were diagnosed."

That sounds familiar. A polio vaccine changed all that, and now scientists are working on a coronavirus vaccine and cure.

Fear and uncertainty were a staple in the 1980s and '90s when AIDS surfaced and quickly became a pandemic, killing without a cure. Suburbanites ordered beer in bottles for fear that they could get AIDS from a glass that had been used by someone with the virus. No one wanted to sit on a public toilet seat. Our government was slow to respond to that health crisis, but eventually drugs for prevention and treatment became available.

We knew in advance of the new millennium that Y2K was threatening to wreak havoc on anything with a computer. Apocalyptic scenarios never happened - not because the fear was a hoax, but because smart people worked hard to prevent it from happening.

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, people were scared life might never return to normal as everything seemed to shut down for days and weeks. Things didn't come back exactly the same, but we quickly learned to adjust to the new normal.

Logic and history tell us that this Coronavirus Era too shall pass. But we have fears now, and uncertainty of when it will be over.

"We face the arduous days that lie before us in the warm courage of the national unity; with the clear consciousness of seeking old and precious moral values; with the clean satisfaction that comes from the stem performance of duty by old and young alike," FDR promised. "We aim at the assurance of a rounded and permanent national life."

Hang tough. Be smart. Come together as Americans. We'll get there.