[dohboi]

https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/201 ... story.html

Since Ebola springs from contact with forest animals — monkeys and fruit bats — it is has always cropped up in isolated places that were easy to quarantine. In 1976, Ebola’s first victims came from villages, where people struggled to afford bus fare, let alone a flight. It was easy for epidemiologists to track down all the people the “index case” had contact with.

But today, Ebola spreads in slums, where people have flocked from all over the country to find jobs. They can return to their rural villages just as easily, carrying the virus.

In 1976, doctors went door to door, explaining in the native tongue why loved ones shouldn’t be touched at their funerals, why their blankets must be burned. Local people, who’d experienced smallpox, understood. They kept the sick in make-shift structures outside their villages, and sent survivors of the illness, who’d built up antibodies, to care for them.

But in Monrovia’s overcrowded slums, there’s no room to isolate the sick.


Ebola might seem like that rare instance where city life — civilization, if you will — is hazardous to your health. Most of us assume that urbanization represents an improvement over hunter-gatherers in the forest or farmers in the countryside.

But some anthropologists argue the opposite.

Mark Cohen, author of the 1989 book “Health and the Rise of Civilization,” studied the skeletal remains of ancient people, and concluded that hunter-gathers were taller, better fed, and healthier than their more “civilized” counterparts. That’s because cities were rife with infectious disease, poor sanitation, and malnutrition.

In the year 542, about 10,000 people a day were said to have died from the bubonic plague in Constantinople. In the 1600s, in London, about 66 percent of all deaths could be attributed to infectious diseases, including a form of tuberculosis called “The King’s Evil,” according to the book “Yellow Fever, Black Goddess: The Coevolution of People and Plagues.”

While it is true that the wealthy benefited greatly from cities, which brought luxuries that had never been experienced before, the living conditions of poor city dwellers was often far worse than their rural ancestors.

This is the situation today for the shantytowns of Monrovia.

[noobtube]

It's funny seeing the American idiots believe this Ebola scam.

It is just cover story for another American military invasion (in an African country, no less).

Sort of like the Iraqis were killing babies in incubators, a la George Bush, in 1992.

Or, 9/11, with the 2nd George Bush, and the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Or, the chemical weapons in Syria, last year (2013).

Americans are the trash on the Earth.

The planet will breathe a sigh of relief when Americans are finally destroyed.

[dissident]

It's funny seeing the American idiots believe this Ebola scam.

It is just cover story for another American military invasion (in an African country, no less).

Sort of like the Iraqis were killing babies in incubators, a la George Bush, in 1992.

Or, 9/11, with the 2nd George Bush, and the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Or, the chemical weapons in Syria, last year (2013).

Americans are the trash on the Earth.

The planet will breathe a sigh of relief when Americans are finally destroyed.

Cut Americans some slack. Most of them are not like SixStrings, sanctimonious, condescending prats with any capacity to learn.

Unfortunately the US media is an Orwellian nightmare and most people lap up the hate propaganda without question. Deluded good people are probably the greatest source of evil on the planet. A crook at least knows he is a crook and can be more restrained at times. The fury of the "righteous" is unrestrained.

[dohboi]

Nice troll attempt, noob. Do keep it up!

[yellowcanoe]

You would think that people living in rural areas would have a healthier life than people living in a city but that doesn't seem to be the case in the Ottawa Valley where I live. According to the health authorities, people living in the rural areas of the Ottawa Valley are on average in poorer health than people living in the city of Ottawa. Contributing factors would be the isolation of rural living and a greater amount of tobacco and alcohol usage.

[timmac]

It's funny seeing the American idiots believe this Ebola scam.

It is just cover story for another American military invasion (in an African country, no less).

Sort of like the Iraqis were killing babies in incubators, a la George Bush, in 1992.

Or, 9/11, with the 2nd George Bush, and the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Or, the chemical weapons in Syria, last year (2013).

Americans are the trash on the Earth.

The planet will breathe a sigh of relief when Americans are finally destroyed.

Well its nice to see dohboi can really attract a good following of students for his cause..

[dohboi]

He's got good company in you, tim.

yc, good points. Other hazards in many parts of the rural US include meth, exposure to high levels of pesticides, the utter wreak of large cattle and pig operations, the need to drive long distances to get anywhere or buy anything...

Yet if ebola and other pandemics really start to become common and wide-spread, they will whip through cities much faster than through most more remote and isolated rural areas. Not that there is any place truly safe.