Covid memorial

I appreciated your involvement in the COVID memorial service at the Lincoln Memorial earlier this week but it made me realize something. We lack a permanent memorial for the Spanish Flu pandemic and the AIDS pandemic and others besides. We build them for wars, but not for pandemics. We should change that. In Japan, hundreds of years ago, a tsunami ravaged the country and the survivors planted stone markers along the high water mark, warning their descendents not to build below them. They passed out of memory and were ignored, but if they hadn't been, they could have saved many lives in more recent tsunamis. We should emulate this. A permanent memorial to the victims of COVID19 and the heros who fought to contain the virus would be a fitting way to honor them. It would also serve to remind future generations of the dangers of pandemics. I wonder, if five generations of Americans had visited a 1918 flu memorial when they toured Washington DC, if we'd have had so much difficulty getting Americans to wear masks and social distance. If we manage to turn the corner on this thing, a memorial would offer us real closure on this moment in our history.