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"When the bubonic plague struck Geneva in 1530, everything was ready. They even opened a whole hospital for the plague victims. With doctors, paramedics and nurses. The traders contributed, the magistrate gave grants every month. The patients always gave money, and if one of them died alone, all the goods went to the hospital.
But then a disaster happened: the plague was dying out, while the subsidies depended on the number of patients. There was no question of right and wrong for the Geneva hospital staff in 1530. If the plague produces money, then the plague is good. And then the doctors got organized.
At first, they just poisoned patients to raise the mortality statistics, but they quickly realized that the statistics didn't have to be just about mortality, but about mortality from plague. So they began to cut the boils from the bodies of the dead, dry them, grind them in a mortar and give them to other patients as medicine. Then they started dusting clothes, handkerchiefs and garters. But somehow the plague continued to abate. Apparently, the dried buboes didn't work well. Doctors went into town and spread bubonic powder on door handles at night, selecting those homes where they could then profit. As an eyewitness wrote of these events, "this remained hidden for some time, but the devil is more concerned with increasing the number of sins than with hiding them."
Odds ratios for the relative risk of infection for people exposed to an infected person (wearing a mask v not wearing a mask) were set at 0.47 for cloth and surgical masks and 0.20 for respiratorsEssentially, they told their computer that masks prevent disease...and then said "ok, computer, since you now know masks prevent disease - what would happen if everybody wore them all the time?"
"All across the board, illness, disability, cancer, heart, autism, fertility...WeFkdUp !!!" — The Ethical Skeptic on TwitterWhat if Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche is correct? The Dutch virologist said at the outset of the Covid-19 episode in 2020 that vaccinating the world in the midst of an epidemic was insane because it would train the virus to evolve more dangerously while disabling human immune systems.
"A Texas resident who spent time working outdoors in Cameron County was recently diagnosed with malaria," according to a health advisory issued Friday by the Texas Department of State Health Services. "DSHS has been working with local health departments to follow up on the case and determine whether other people may have been exposed. So far, no other locally acquired malaria cases have been identified in Texas."Coincidentally, or not, Business Insider reported back in 2018:
The Florida cases were reported May 26 and June 19 by the health departments in Sarasota and Manatee Counties.
How Rare Is Locally Acquired Malaria?
Malaria is so unusual in the U.S. that it's considered an eradicated disease. When there are cases, it's almost always related to international travel.
But the health departments in Florida and Texas said the three recent cases came from local mosquito bites.
The last case of locally acquired malaria in Texas was in 1994, according to the health advisory.
Of 488 cases of malaria reported in Florida over the past decade, one other case besides the two recent ones are confirmed to have been contracted locally, according to state records.
How Does Malaria Spread?
Malaria is transmitted by certain species of female anopheles mosquitoes, which are present throughout most of the continental United States. But the disease is widely influenced by weather.
"Where malaria is found depends mainly on climatic factors such as temperature, humidity, and rainfall," the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says on its website.
But scientists warn that a changing climate could push mosquito-borne diseases into new areas and increase their prevalence in places where they already exist.
Globally, the most recent numbers from the World Health Organization estimate that about 247 million people in 85 countries contracted malaria and 619,000 died in 2021. Children under the age of 5 are among the groups most vulnerable.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is partnering with mosquito engineering company Oxitec to develop a male mosquito designed to kill off future generations of malaria-transmitting bugs.[...]
Oxitec is hoping to try out some of its other lab-made mosquitoes in the Florida Keys this summer, even though residents have in the past voiced fierce opposition to the idea.
Comment: This comes amidst an increase of other formerly rare infections and diseases, as well as a shortage of basic medicines - and this trend is not isolated to just the US: