It’s been over 5 months since New York City and New York State alerted us to the fact that polio was back-unbelievably! After all these years. If you grew up in the 40s and 50s as I did, you immediately conjured the iron long, your parents not letting you go to public swimming pool, the dread of it all. You may even know adults who had polio way back then.
The headlines were scary. Just plain scary.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7144e2.htm
The NYCDOHMH started posting lots of information on polio prevention, how it spreads, maps of polio vaccination rates, who should be vaccinated.
It’s about 5 months since it was hinted that the next plague could be upon us. Forget COVID. This would be more awful. Very little since then. What are we to make of this. As advertisers ask, what is the take-home message ?
- That this dreaded polio simply went away?
- That public health, experts and scientists are just skittish since Covid.
- That these public health alarms are something we should take with a grain of salt? Or with a swig of bleach!
This is quite shocking for me!
ReplyDeleteYes, and what is shocking is that we don’t hear updates, so what does that really mean in terms of explaining the risk to the public?
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