[conspire] I with I have $5000 for everyone who died of Wuhan-19

[Nick Moffitt]

On 07May2020 12:57pm (-0400), Ruben Safir wrote:
> On Thu, May 07, 2020 at 03:45:26PM +0000, Nick Moffitt wrote:
> > On 06May2020 04:10pm (-0400), Ruben Safir wrote:
> > > If I have $5000 for every man, women and child who died of Wuhan-19...
> > 
> > The history of deliberate ethnic associations with disease is a vast and
> > storied one.  It does not contain any heroes.
> 
> define "deliberate ethnic associations" ?

In 1918, a pandemic influenza virus was first documented at an army base in the US.  It spread through the military and civilian population of America, Germany, France, and eventually Spain.

Spain was neutral in WW1, so it had a relatively free press at the time.  All the reports on the disease were censored in the warring nations.  This led to the impression abroad that it was a uniquely Spanish problem, giving birth to the misleading name "Spanish Flu".  The flu was no more Spanish than the current epidemic is Italian.  It killed people in all nations.

Pandemics earn that title specifically because they are not stopped by any border, and to name one after a region is misleading and quite often used to deny rights and dignity to a population.  For example, tuberculosis was often referred to by American doctors in the 19th century as "The Jewish Disease", and this was used to justify all sorts of abuse.

As I said, investigations do not turn up anyone doing this for noble purposes.