Eleven Blue (or Red) Men

Because the book I'm currently reading isn't really capturing my attention, I pulled Berton Roueche's "Eleven Blue Men" off the shelf for a re-read.

Yes, it's an ironic book to read during a pandemic. For those unfamiliar with Roueche, he wrote a series called "The Annals of Medicine" for the New Yorker -- a series of short non-fiction pieces, set mostly in New York City, about various disease outbreaks over the years.

The one that caught my attention the most this time is called "A Man from Mexico." It tells the tale of an outbreak of smallpox in New York just at the close of World War II that was traced to an American who had been living in Mexico but was traveling through New York on the way to Maine with his wife to look at a farm she's just inherited.

While traveling, the man became ill, an in New York stopped at a dermatologic clinic at a city hospital. The outbreak sickened twelve people with a virulent form of smallpox. Two of them died.

What's striking about this story is the public health response: A mass immunization.

Officials estimated at the beginning of the outbreak, per Roueche, that only about 2 million of the 8 million people living in New York had any immunity to smallpox, due to vaccinations or exposure and recovery.

First, public health officials tracked down more than 3,000 people who might have come into contact with the man and wife -- a search that stretched into 29 states.

Then, a mass immunization program began, with the then-mayor of New York City going to the press to show himself getting immunized.

What was the public response, to an outbreak that was limited to 12 confirmed cases, including two victims? At least 6,350,000 people were immunized, including nearly 900,000 children who were immunized through the public school system.

So when, I wonder, a vaccine for the coronavirus becomes available, what will the public response be? I hesitate to say it will be as successful as this example from post-war New York.

Because the news and social media clearly tells me vaccines are political now. A mass vaccination program -- particularly one that might have been linked to getting injected with cow juice, as one could colloquially put with the bovine-generated smallpox vaccine -- would meet with some stiff resistance among the loonier fringes of society. That would probably include our current lieutenant governor, who is not a stable woman, if you forgive the pun.

You'd have the fringe saying vaccines cause autism. You'd have the fringe saying anything the government wants to do is baaaaad, baaaaaaad, folks. You'd have the even loonier fringe who'd suspect that government vaccine was really putting nanorobots or tracking chips in them. So noooooooooooooooooooooo way, sir. No way.

And you'd probably have people drinking it by the gallon too, because stupidiousness knows no political bounds.

Anyway, some good reading, if you've got the time.