Looking a Plague in the Eye
by Geoffrey Botkin
“What’s your favorite plague? Mine’s the plague of frogs.”
Thus began the debate in our community about the “P” word. The discussion was
started by a five-year old boy, one of the few Americans who hadn’t dismissed
plague as historical fiction. Until today, many Americans seemed to regard
rampaging outbreaks as mythical, medieval or irrelevant annoyances. Or perhaps
cinematic dramas. Or perhaps exotic evidence that Africa is a hopeless place.
But today the exotic word Ebola became a household word in Dallas,
Texas.
Ebola is a plague with a capital P. It is more than an
annoyance, and it is not fiction. It has wiped out entire villages. It is now
rampaging its way onto airlines and into America’s medically-advanced Bible
belt. Today Ebola became life-and-death relevant to every American as
authorities diagnosed a case in Texas. Authorities then admitted that the
critically ill carrier had an unknown number of interactions with other
Americans before he was quarantined in a Dallas hospital. Authorities then assured
Americans that Ebola will be “stopped in its tracks in the US.” But then
authorities refused to tell Texans who this carrier was or where his tracks had
taken him after he had left Africa.
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