doctors on the Navajo reservation see a few cases of plague every year or so.
And when you see these cases, you are familiar with symptoms and diagnose them early, so the mortality is low.
this survey discusses cases in the past: (1950s to 1990_) and the prevention programs there.
So Bubonic plague is not a big danger of an epidemic right now: but it might surprise you that the 3rd plague epidemic that started in China killed about 12 million in China and India in the late 1800s.
But China is not the only place where rodents carry this disease:
plague is present in rodents in the SW of the USA and could start an epidemic at any time, but it is unlikely since doctors are aware of the problem.
But other diseases kill, and alas, the covid hit the Navajos badly: And it was introduced there by a person attending a church service.
and the spread was made worse because of multigeneration homes.
A variety of factors — including a high prevalence of diseases like diabetes, scarcity of running water, and homes with several generations living under the same roof — has enabled the virus to spread with exceptional speed, according to epidemiologists.more here:
As of June 1, the Navajo Nation reported 5,250 positive COVID-19 cases, 1,745 recoveries and 241 deaths. In the Shiprock area last month, three siblings who buried their mother, father, and brother were forced to watch the burial services remotely because they, too, were infected with the disease.
The poverty and federal neglect of the people on the reservations is not new, nor are delays in getting sufficient funding for the IHS hospitals and clinics on the reservations, but of course, now the press has noticed because they will pretend these longstanding problems are somehow new and they can blame Trumpieboy for the government red tape that slowed health money from getting there quickly.
Nez said that he was growing exasperated with delays in receiving federal emergency funds and requirements that tribal nations, unlike cities and counties, apply for grants to receive money from federal stimulus legislation. The extra hurdles have produced weeks of bureaucratic delays, he said. “We’re barely getting bits and pieces,” Nez said. “You have counties, municipalities, already taking advantage of these funds, and tribes are over here writing our applications and turning it in and waiting weeks to get what we need.”
sounds familiar. The red tape prevents ordinary people who need the stimulus money wait forever, while the rich groups who know how to work around the system get the money, and some of them really didn't need it because they had lots of invested money they could have used. But nevertheless, they applied and got the funds:
Politico has a little list of politically oriented groups who got loot and who helped them get it.
Michael Voris, a far right radical critic of the Vatican, notes how the Catholics grabbed their share of the wealth
Sigh.
As for us: We are still in partial lockdown: I went to the bank and was stopped because I went with the maid, and to keep her distance she sat behind the driver on the motorcycle, and that is still forbidden. (we were stopped on the street by a cop enforcing that law). I also arranged for a hairdresser to come and cut my hair, because I am unwilling to go inside the small shop to have it done.
The streets which have been deserted here are much more crowded and almost back to normal, and we have a lot more trucks going by: many with deliveries but also with concrete blocks and gravel or dirt, meaning construction has restarted.
the rumble of the trucks on the street next to our house is probably why I wasn't aware that we had a minor earthquake in our area.
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update: Professor Lal has a lecture about the third Black death epidemic I mentioned above, and how it affected India.
As India becomes more nationalistic, their history is being rewritten to remember the many wars and massacres and diseases.
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update: GetReligion evaluates the reporting bias in an AP article on the Catholic church receiving money, and a lot of those biases can be found in the above video too.
one of the problems? The program was for small businesses, and often parishes are not able to get the money, so the diocese asked to get it for them even though they had over 500 employees.
The real question is where did the money do, and of course, it needs to be put into perspective of other groups who got money.
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