Epidemics

    When we get sick, we try not to spread the disease.  We quarantine ourselves with infectious diseases like God told the Israelites to do (Leviticus 13:45-46).  It’s the only sensible and caring thing to do.
     Mary Mallon, known as typhoid Mary, was not so careful.  An Irish immigrant in the late 1800’s, early 1900’s she became a known carrier of typhoid fever.  She was a cook who refused to wash her hands as she cooked for many families in New York.  She was asymptomatic, that is, she did not have the disease though she carried it in her gallbladder.  The combination of lack of hygiene and food preparation meant she spread typhoid to many people, some of whom died of the disease.  Forcibly quarantined on two separate occasions, she continued to change her name, work as a cook and further spread the disease.
     European immigrants brought small pox epidemics to New England in 1633-34.  Caribbean refugees brought yellow fever to Philadelphia in 1793.  A cholera epidemic spread across the U.S. between 1830-1851, having spread via the trade routes from India.  A deadly flu epidemic that killed 20 million people spread through the armies of World War 1.  The now 30 plus years of the H.I.V. worldwide epidemic started in Haiti, and has yet to be contained.
     Ebola plus open borders plus the food service industry plus amnesty for aliens plus the refusal to put quarantines in place equals an epidemic.  Typhoid Mary, as irresponsible as she was, does not compare with health risks we are now taking.

---

Rick Cunningham