05-18-2021, 04:29 AM
In the US the government has the authority and the duty to balance individual freedoms against public health. Possibly the primary example is Mary Mallon, more popularly known as Typhoid Mary. She was an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid who did not believe in hand washing. Her occupation was cook. Mary changed jobs often. Disease and death followed in her wake. From her least 53 persons are believed to have contracted typhoid.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mallon
Mary was involuntarily quarantined in New York but released when she promised to stop working as a cook and to wash her hands. But working as a cook is good money, and why wash your hands?
And then there were the regulations against spitting. Does no one else remember "No Spitting" signs everywhere? Devotees of chewing tobacco spread tuberculosis. The government responded. Spitters were arrested. Before antibiotics tuberculosis was no fun. The first husband of my guardian succumbed to the White Death. I don't think he chewed or spit, but he was a milkman and tuberculosis is also spread to humans through milk from infected cows. That is why most milk is pasteurized.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mallon
Mary was involuntarily quarantined in New York but released when she promised to stop working as a cook and to wash her hands. But working as a cook is good money, and why wash your hands?
And then there were the regulations against spitting. Does no one else remember "No Spitting" signs everywhere? Devotees of chewing tobacco spread tuberculosis. The government responded. Spitters were arrested. Before antibiotics tuberculosis was no fun. The first husband of my guardian succumbed to the White Death. I don't think he chewed or spit, but he was a milkman and tuberculosis is also spread to humans through milk from infected cows. That is why most milk is pasteurized.
"I may be old, but I'm not dead."