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Disease Outbreaks

Started by A Nonny Moose, April 19, 2015, 09:25:24 AM

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A Nonny Moose

Disease outbreaks seem to be random and that's OK, but there should be some etiology for such things as Yellow Fever.

Yellow Jack is a tropical disease and does not spontaneously show up in a forested area such as we mostly have, yet in this case, I had no outside visitors: no traders; no nomads.  This disease should not be generated without some outside contact.

I suggest that in further editions of this game that a little more study go into disease outbreaks to make them more plausible.  For example, polio can only occur in warm weather and seems to be associated with freshwater beaches.
Go not to the oracle, for it will say both yea and nay.

[Gone, but not forgotten. Rest easy, you are no longer banished.]
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kee

? Isn't it cholera, not polio, you just described?
Kim Erik

A Nonny Moose

#2
No.  Cholera is usually due to poor sanitation with open sewers contaminating the drinking water supply.  It is certainly more potent than plain old e-coli infections.  Dirty sewers and drains can also cause typhus.

When I was a kid and there was no polio vaccine, people stayed off the beaches if there were known cases of polio around.  I lost some school friends to polio until the Salk vaccine appeared when I was in high-school.

Then, of course, there is good ol' Y. Pestis, which is transmitted from rats to fleas to humans.  Bubonic plague.
Go not to the oracle, for it will say both yea and nay.

[Gone, but not forgotten. Rest easy, you are no longer banished.]
https://www.haskettfh.com/winterton-john-hensall/

rkelly17

Quote from: A Nonny Moose on April 19, 2015, 01:06:21 PM
No.  Cholera is usually due to poor sanitation with open sewers contaminating the drinking water supply.  It is certainly more potent than plain old e-coli infections.  Dirty sewers and drains can also cause typhus.

When I was a kid and there was no polio vaccine, people stayed off the beaches if there were known cases of polio around.  I lost some school friends to polio until the Salk vaccine appeared when I was in high-school.

Then, of course, there is good ol' Y. Pestis, which is transmitted from rats to fleas to humans.  Bubonic plague.

Interesting idea that polio was associated with warm weather and beaches. When I was a kid growing up in So. Cal., we have a lot of polio hospitals because people thought that the climate would help. Don't ever remember being told to avoid the beach--a totally heretical idea in Southern California. We also had lots of TB sanitoria because of the "healthful" air. The people realized that smog was actually bad for you.

And the Salk vaccine did totally change our lives--we all lived in fear of getting polio because we all knew people who had it. Also we all knew people who had severe long-term effects of measles. <possible unpopular opinion>That's why I'll never be an anti-vaccer.</possible unpopular opinion>

A Nonny Moose

^ Anti-vacciners deserve what happens to them.  All that BS is based on some very bad "science" having to do with the recent upswing in diagnosed autism of various stripes.  IMHO the rise in autism is the general lack of socialization of young children who are now so insulated and bubble wrapped that they simply don't learn the basics of social interaction.

If these ID 10 T errors had lived when I was a kid, they would change their minds.  I had just about every childhood disease possible except for scarlet fever and polio (whew!).  As these vaccines came out, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
Go not to the oracle, for it will say both yea and nay.

[Gone, but not forgotten. Rest easy, you are no longer banished.]
https://www.haskettfh.com/winterton-john-hensall/

Paeng

Gah, big issue here right now... just last year we had some outbreaks of measles here in Germany, with like 1500 or so infections... big fights among the anti-vacciner/vacciner factions... All these new-age moms up in arms - I think these people (the anti-vacc) are totally irresponsible, with the vaccination risk at something like 0.002% or so...  >:(
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A Nonny Moose

Let 'em think they are safe.  One of these days they'll run into one the diseases they've been ignoring and it may kill or disable them permanently.  This is a form of Darwin Award.  With luck, they will be removed from the gene pool without further procreation.
Go not to the oracle, for it will say both yea and nay.

[Gone, but not forgotten. Rest easy, you are no longer banished.]
https://www.haskettfh.com/winterton-john-hensall/

rkelly17

Clearly the "Old Farts Club" around here is pro-vaccers (to coin a phrase). For me the key is that I remember a time when we weren't all vaccinated. I knew too many people who either died or lived with the effects of diseases that we can now be free from. One of the biggest health problems in the world is kids dying from diseases for which vaccines are available but which their parents/governments can't afford. We're talking in the multiple 1000s every day.


irrelevant

I'm with you guys on vaccinations. Too much risk involved not to have them.

salamander

The biggest problem with the folks that refuse to get vaccinations is that they're not just affecting themselves.  The effectiveness of vaccines in a population relies on a 'herd immunity' effect -- not everyone in the group has to be immune for the prevention of an epidemic, just a certain percentage based on the characteristics of the disease.

If the level of immunity drops too low, it opens the door for an epidemic to start.  The non-immune individuals would be the first to suffer, sure, but there could also be social and economic consequences that could affect everyone.