Many people speculate as to what could end “Occupy Wall Street.” Speculations include: getting bored and giving up; cold weather; or police intervention. There’s another possibility that might bring about the sudden halt to OWS.
Crowded, dirty, living conditions and poor sanitation:
This sounds like Occupy Wall Street, does it not?
It's not! This is the description of the conditions that helped spread both the bubonic plague of the 1300’s and the Influenza Pandemic of 1918.
Make shift hospital caring for 1918 influenza victims ==>
<==Dinner Hour on the docks in Jacksonville, Florida. Unsanitary conditions and a lack of understanding of how the disease was transmitted contributed to the spread of influenza. [Credit: The Library of Congress]
Days after Philadelphia’s Liberty Loan parade in September 1918, which was attended by 200,000 people, hundreds of cases of influenza were reported. [Credit: Naval Historical Center]
And these are the conditions (or worse) that the OWS protesters are living in.
Crowded....
Dirty.....
Poor Sanitation....
Conditions ripe for bacterial or viral infections to take hold and spread. Most infections that become epidemic spread through droplets from person to person. That is, a person coughs or sneezes and the infection laden droplets are spread in the air to the next person. Infections spread more rapidly in crowded conditions. These people are also not living in sanitary conditions. Some are urinating and defecating in the park (and other places). Hand washing is practically non-existent. Trash is piled up; a prime breeding ground for bacteria, and possibly rodents who can also help spread infection. With cooler weather upon us, the occupiers will most likely be huddling even closer together. All it takes is one person infected to start the chain reaction. Diseases can spread, infecting the entire population before it is know there even is an infection.
Diseases that can spread quickly include: influenza, cholera, meningitis, E. Coli, typhus, diphtheria, and meningococcal disease to name a few.
“In the midst of perfect health, in a circumscribed community... the first case of influenza would occur, and then within the next few hours or days a large proportion- and occasionally every single individual of that community- would be stricken down with the same type of febrile illness, the rate of spread from one to another being remarkable... Barrack rooms which the day before had been full of bustle and life, would now converted wholesale into one great sick room, the number of sick developing so rapidly that hospitals were within a day or two so overfull that fresh admissions were impossible.”
-Dr. Herbert French to the British Ministry of Health on the 1918 Influenza outbreak
If the protesters don’t end Occupy Wall Street soon, it will most likely be ended for them. Death of protesters means death of the movement. The protesters will leave, taken away on stretchers or body bags. Taken down not by the police, or the cold, or by desertion of the bored whiners, but by a twinkle of an organisim and results could be as devastating as the bubonic plague or the influenza pandemic of 1918. This would be the literal death of the movement.
Good point, and I think we're coming right up into flu season.
ReplyDeleteI keep wondering why, if the protesters have received so many donations, they're not spending some of the money on Johnny-On-The-Spot and handwashing stations? I mean, even if each one is $100/week, surely they can afford that? They're spending a lot more than that on drugs and condoms alone, surely. It makes no sense to me. There's no excuse for them NOT spending this donated money on things that will benefit every single one of them. You know. The Greater Good and all that.
ReplyDeleteIt's kind of sick that the author seems to be rooting for this. These are just Americans that want corporate money out of the politicians' pockets. Campaign finance reform. Period. If you don't want the same, you are insane.
ReplyDeleteThis is a joke, right? I mean, if you only knew the level of caring and conscientiousness among the Occupioneers, with things like providing their own sanitation (green), first aid tents with all supplies, including rubber gloves, ad all kinds of wellness aids, not to mention healthy food for free - you'd be ashamed to have published such nonsense. And if this is the strongest criticism you can come up with - a criticism based on assumptions and speculation - you're done for! What about the 45 million Americans without any health insurance and the countless others with inadequate coverage? What about those whose insurance companies dump them as soon as they become ill?
ReplyDeleteAnd I suggest in the meantime that you, Angela, visit your friendly neighborhood occupioneers and see for yourself what kind of things they are doing with their donated money and time.
this article is a joke, i have to assume it is a plant, considering nothing written in it is true, the area is cleaned by the people there, wow, just wow at this level of ignorance
ReplyDeleteDear "Anonymous": Why hide behind "anonymous" I'm on twitter for anyone who wishes to discuss this, but you knew that already or how would you have found the blog?
ReplyDeleteThis "anon" is the one that posted at 11:10pm/10-17. I didn't write the other two posts. And it's none of your business what my name is. My friends, family and acquaintances in the online world know exactly where I stand. I don't need a legion of lockstep trolls coming after me on twitter. Truth is the truth, for those paying real attention. So why on earth would you, after a couple of insightful responses to this blog, only be concerned with who is responding? Is it that personal attacks, such as this blog, are easier than actually sticking to the facts?
ReplyDeleteJust to be clear: I do not wish anyone harm. The facts are that anytime a large group congregates for long periods, disease can spread quickly.
ReplyDeleteAs to the anonymous people, I don't care who you are, only that you are hiding. You make a statement and run away. What are you afraid of? Why hide? Why not have a conversation about it? Blog posts are not the best way to have a conversation. Not one of the anonymous people have posted anY proof of what they say.
None of you are worthy of any respect.
Here is just one article as my proof: http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_19139574
If we're not "worthy of your respect" (lol) then why bother even addressing us? Just address the issue. As I said, when you don't, it only gives the appearance that your argument is weak.
ReplyDeleteI read your blog, and it had a troublesome tone. You should be aware of that. "Death of a Movement" is a two-fer message and you seem smart enough to know that. So given that what follows, which is, by the way, based on the assumption that the protesters are filthy (ie "dirty hippies"), is an outlandish prediction that takes us all the way to the Bubonic plague (?!!), it's clear that there is some ray of hope in the idea that "the movement," of which you obviously disapprove, is so verminous that its own impurities will inspire spontaneous illness. Oh happy day that no one should have to hear more about what banks and corps in general are doing to the middle and working classes, or that they should stay out of the pockets of politicians (half of who, btw, are Democrats).
Blog posts aren't the best way to have conversations? What is? Twitter? Do you think people who don't know you would wish to converse about this privately so that it's one against one? Or so that it appears in public that no one disagrees with what you write? Why would you bother blogging with a comments sections at all then?
If you're thinking I'm someone that knows you personally and is hiding from you, don't. Someone I follow on Twitter (I don't even remember who now) tweeted a link to this particular blog. So I'm just an American, another one you haven't met like probably all of the people marching on Wall Street and on streets across the country. I'm just someone who is pretty convinced you're paying attention to media that is hellbent on protecting the corps that pay their bills, when instead, you should be asking yourself who exactly it is that benefits the most from your representatives receiving unlimited amounts of campaign cash from people like Goldman Sachs and Lehmann Bros. The people standing up for themselves are just as concerned about the country as you are, and perhaps they're not the ill-informed, unwashed creatures that you seem to think they are.
It's sad that this woman like so many other people in America and maybe the world are self absorbed, ignorant people who disregard other human beings when they don't live up to their own standards of what a human being or American should be.
ReplyDelete