re: #417 Lidane

A man died in Texas from Ebola.

Another man died in South Carolina from the flu.

One of these disease will kill thousands of Americans

I don’t know if you follow Jim on Facebook, but he put up a very clever expanded version of this tweet earlier.

And so, here in the United States a man has died from a highly contagious viral disease.

You might have heard of this, it made the papers this morning.

The dead man, he won’t be the last.

It begins with cold-like symptoms, sniffles, aches, sore throat. And while those symptoms persist the infected are highly contagious. A sneeze, a cough, bodily fluids, that’s all it takes. It moves through the population like wildfire along a windy California ridge.

Before he died, this man may have infected dozens of others - and they are out there, right now, in the crowd with the virus growing inside them. They could be standing next to you right now, at the bus stop, in the office, in the schools, sleeping in the bed beside you with death brewing in their bloodstream.

Before this disease has run its course many, many more will die.The average mortality rate for the untreated is 800 per 100,000, meaning maybe as many as 2 MILLION will die worldwide this year alone. Infants, the aged, those with compromised immune systems are most at risk, but it can and does kill healthy people as well.

There’s a vaccine.

Oh, yes, there is a vaccine. But many won’t take it. They won’t take it because they’re too busy, or because they believe in thoroughly debunked conspiracy theories, or because they’re afraid it’ll make them sick, or because they think vaccines are a plot by the government and big pharma to steal their money and freedom, or, well, some people just can’t afford it because they’re barely scraping by and they don’t have healthcare insurance. A lot of those people, they’re going to get sick, some will die.

So, anyway, as I…

What?

What’s that?

Vaccine? Well, sure, there’s a vaccine. Safe. Effective. Cheap. We’ve had a vaccine for years, decades. How could you not know this?

What?

Ohhhh, I see, you thought I was talking about…

No.

I was talking about the flu.

The first reported death in the US for this flu season happened yesterday in South Carolina.

But you probably didn’t see the headline, what with the Ebola and all.