# Bubonic Plague in NYC **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 7, 2002, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bubonic-plague-in-nyc/135645 "2002-11-07T02:31:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dragongirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b38774/32.png) [@dragongirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dragongirl)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2002, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bubonic-plague-in-nyc/135645/1 "2002-11-07T02:31:34Z")
[From ABC news](http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/ap20021106_2669.html) That’s kinda scary. ---
**Author:** ![Tripler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripler/32/21807_2.png) [@Tripler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tripler)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2002, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bubonic-plague-in-nyc/135645/2 "2002-11-07T02:47:36Z")
Prairie dogs carry it around like wildfire around here. I’m actually surprised it’s not more widespread. Tripler I’m going into MOPP 4 just for safety’s sake. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2002, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bubonic-plague-in-nyc/135645/3 "2002-11-07T02:56:19Z")
Hey! I’ve got the flu and you’ve just scared the crap outta me! [sup]Biggirl-- Feverish and a little soiled in New York.[/sup] ---
**Author:** ![dwyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwyr/32/363_2.png) [@dwyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwyr)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2002, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bubonic-plague-in-nyc/135645/4 "2002-11-07T02:56:44Z")
Not that odd since the man is from New Mexico where the organism is [endemic.](http://www.ksu.edu/research/animal/occhs/fact12.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2002, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bubonic-plague-in-nyc/135645/5 "2002-11-07T03:04:48Z")
From your link: > [@](#): > > Plague occurs in 10 to 20 people in the United States and 1,000 to 3,000 people worldwide each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About one in seven cases is fatal. So what’s so scary about this one? ---
**Author:** ![airdisc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e19adc/32.png) [@airdisc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/airdisc)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2002, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bubonic-plague-in-nyc/135645/6 "2002-11-07T03:44:26Z")
I’m not scared. Now, if twenty more people were to get sick in New York, and a few die, then I’d be a bit scared. But this? Nah. Then again, a lot of people said that when the first guy got anthrax last year. Ah well, I’ll wait and see, though I doubt anything will become of this. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2002, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bubonic-plague-in-nyc/135645/7 "2002-11-07T04:40:23Z")
You guys ain’t scared 'cuz you don’t have a fever right now. Plus, these guys came from New Mexico where they got it from fleas. . . and I had a taco for lunch. I’m doomed, I tell ya. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@The\_Tim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tim)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2002, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bubonic-plague-in-nyc/135645/8 "2002-11-07T05:06:18Z")
The Plague isn’t that bad. Really. It just has the ominious name. It is the Plague. Or occasionally the Black Death. I mean you don’t call a disease you can just ignore stuff like that. Of course it was named in a time when sanitation was pretty much non-existant and the thing spread damn far. Also there were no effective ways to treat it so it offed a damn lot of those who caught it. So it made sense to call it by scary names. Now days the Plague mantle should pass to a different disease. ---
**Author:** ![Cabbage](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f07891/32.png) [@Cabbage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cabbage)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2002, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bubonic-plague-in-nyc/135645/9 "2002-11-07T06:12:49Z")
In that case, I vote we rename the “Black Death” to the “Black Inconvenience”. ---
**Author:** ![tritone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8e7dd6/32.png) [@tritone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tritone)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2002, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bubonic-plague-in-nyc/135645/10 "2002-11-07T06:26:00Z")
Ain’t there a poster around somewhere called **Yersinia Pestis**? ---
**Author:** ![tritone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8e7dd6/32.png) [@tritone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tritone)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2002, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bubonic-plague-in-nyc/135645/11 "2002-11-07T06:30:37Z")
Oh, poo… don’t know quite how I pressed submit on that one, but there was meant to be another sentence: If so, then we’ve got _bubonic plague on the SDMB!!!_ 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![happyheathen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5e925/32.png) [@happyheathen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/happyheathen)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2002, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bubonic-plague-in-nyc/135645/12 "2002-11-07T07:10:01Z")
What did you EXPECT?! The 'pubbies won, now come the plague, famine, pestilence… Why do I have to keep explaining this stuff? yeeesh… ---
**Author:** ![InternetLegend](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/internetlegend/32/13154_2.png) [@InternetLegend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InternetLegend)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2002, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bubonic-plague-in-nyc/135645/13 "2002-11-07T07:45:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by The Tim \* > \*\*Now days the Plague mantle should pass to a different disease. \*\* Hey, how about [hantavirus](http://www.bocklabs.wisc.edu/ed/hanta.html)? It’s still very deadly and is also mostly found in New Mexico. _New Mexico: Land of the flea, home of the plague_ ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2002, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bubonic-plague-in-nyc/135645/14 "2002-11-07T08:26:01Z")
Jeezus, the other reports on this I’ve read, apart from not even mentioning the _totally_ irellevant bioterrorism angle, are careful to mention that the couple is suspected of having contracted the disease from sleeping in nasty old sleeping-bags that had been left out in their yard (in N.M.) for a number of weeks – pretty stupid since [the health board had already tested a number of dead rats found on their property and confirmed that they died from bubonic plague.](http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/news/WABC_110602_nycplague.html) > [@](#): > > The state health department in Sante Fe, New Mexico, where the couple lives, tested rodents on their property this summer. Apparently many of those rodents tested positive for the Bubonic plague. > > Doctors say they believe the couple was infected in their home state after sleeping in a sleeping bags that had been outdoors on their property for several weeks. Those sleeping bags are now being tested. It seems to me that when you know you have dead plague rats around your place, you’d take a few precautions against being bitten by fleas – at least avoid using blankets that have been outdoors for part of the summer. :smack: Hello, Mr. Darwin? ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2002, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bubonic-plague-in-nyc/135645/15 "2002-11-07T08:29:00Z")
Addendum: It’s not clear from the article I linked to that the couple knew – but according to an account I read earlier today, (lost to me, now) they did… They were the ones who called the health board after finding dead rats – they weren’t left “out of the loop” or anything. ---
**Author:** ![CRorex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CRorex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CRorex)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2002, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bubonic-plague-in-nyc/135645/16 "2002-11-07T17:41:56Z")
1 in 7 cases fatal? Are we sure it’s 1 in 7 fatal in the US? Because I thought BP was fairly easilly treated with modern medicine. Maybe the 1 in 7 fatalities is worldwide. ---
**Author:** ![Eats\_Crayons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/278dde/32.png) [@Eats\_Crayons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eats_Crayons)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2002, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bubonic-plague-in-nyc/135645/17 "2002-11-07T21:49:37Z")
**CRorex** It’s possible that it’s 1 in 7 because some states don’t consider the plague until it’s too late. The last time I was in NM, there was a story of a little girl who died in New England. She’d been in an agricultural area in NM, then had visited relatives in Kentucky, but she didn’t develop symptoms until she’d returned home to New England. The doctors had never thought to look for bubonic plague and family members had only talked of “returning from Kentucky.” In her case she died and because she was misdiagnosed and didn’t receive the proper treatment in time (and because the plague is particularly nasty for children and the elderly who may not have tough immune systems). IIRC, a professor also died a few years ago because he’d been doing a study on NM prairie dogs (when I was kid, they always told me to stay away from gopher holes for that very reason.) 1 in 7 sounds resasonable, though I agree it seems a tad high. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2002, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bubonic-plague-in-nyc/135645/18 "2002-11-08T00:58:38Z")
Aren’t prarie dogs popular pets in Japan? Plage in Tokyo someday? :eek: ---
**Author:** ![ElwoodCuse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/edb3f5/32.png) [@ElwoodCuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElwoodCuse)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2002, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bubonic-plague-in-nyc/135645/19 "2002-11-08T07:28:00Z")
[clang] Bring out 'cher dead! ---
**Author:** ![Eats\_Crayons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/278dde/32.png) [@Eats\_Crayons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eats_Crayons)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2002, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bubonic-plague-in-nyc/135645/20 "2002-11-08T13:08:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor \* > \*\*Aren’t prarie dogs popular pets in Japan? > > Plage in Tokyo someday? :eek: \*\* Yeah, and rats are common pets in North America… We’re all gonna die!!! [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bubonic-plague-in-nyc/135645.md?page=2)