Note: This is a post from several months ago which I somehow saved to draft and thought I’d lost. It’s still relevant to our current situation, so I thought I’d go ahead and post it.
Saw this, watched it, and it sounded strangely familiar . . .
She left out the bit about why the rats are such a big deal. The rats are the reservoir for the plague, the fleas (which she doesn’t mention) that bite the rats and then bite people are the plague vectors, i.e., the way plague gets from rats to humans. But otherwise, she’s got her facts straight.
She did not made this up. This is not fake news. It is historical fact. It actually happened. This is why bubonic plague is now endemic in certain species of rodents native to the American southwest. This is the reason why doctors who practice all over the western United States are still treating anywhere from 11 to 100 people for bubonic plague each year.
I wish Doughty’s tale of greed, graft, and corruption was an isolated incident, but guess what? We must be on about the fifth or sixth verse of this same old song by now.
Like the man says:
Masks prevent COVID19,
but only if you wear them and wear them correctly.
*I stole the quote from baseball's inimitable Yogi Bera. I wish I was using it to be funny, but tragically, it's all too true.
The Owl Underground 