Moralising the way diseases and viruses are transferred is a very human, and particularly nasty trait. “We don’t need this kind of riff-raff on our shores,” screamed The New York Times in 1892 in response to Russian Jewish immigrants arriving at Ellis Island by boat. (The occupants hosted lice which, […]
Tag: Epidemic
Fashion Fetishism, Surgical Masks And Coronavirus
Entering Singapore’s Changi Airport gives the visitor a glimpse of a mask fetish. Security guards wear it. As do the nurses and the various personnel who man cameras like anti-aircraft batteries, noting the approaching passenger in transit with due suspicion. The passenger, in turn, wishes to avoid showing anything that […]
Сhina And The Coronavirus Problem
Authoritarian responses, with the gloved heavy hand, will always find its admirers. The reaction by Chinese authorities to the novel coronavirus (now named COVID-19) outbreak has been receiving its fair share of gushing praise from some medical circles. No country builds hospitals as quickly as they do; or seal off […]
Is Another Black Death On The Way?
Plagues from the east are nothing new. The Black Death and other epidemics arrived in Europe from China during the 1300’s, killing a large percentage of its population. Much of this pestilence came from rats that stowed away on merchant ships coming from the east. At the end of World […]
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