Category Archives: Viruses, bacteria, plagues, disease

The Far Rockaway Cough (in Faraway New York)

by funklord

Looks like New York is still in the thick of it.  I previously reported on the stomach flu that was ripping through the shelters, and in a similar vein, there is a new affliction that is plaguing New Yorkers:  The Far Rockaway Cough.  This isn’t a normal cough caused by a virus.  All the mold, and various crap that has been, and continues to be, stirred up by Sandy and the cleanup is going into people’s lungs and causing various respiratory illnesses.

Due to the flooding, the wood structures are rotting.  Those spores, even if you are not usually allergic, will get into your lungs and cause a myriad of problems.

The real downside is there isn’t a cure besides getting out of the situation.

Stomach Virus sweeps through NY Camps

by funklord

For my regular readers, you are well aware of my morbid fascination with the ongoing viral epidemics raging cross this globe of ours.  In NY, as the city recovers from Sandy, the Stomach Flu is ripping through certain camps set up along the city.  This is to be expected, given the conditions and close living quarters.

*Warning:  Rant ahead*

Here is why I am writing about this: the average person is woefully unprepared to deal with any calamity that pulls them off the id for more than a few days.  If you don’t have power supplied by a power company, you don’t have food readily available, gas to power things (generators, cars for travel) things get really ugly really fast.  That is NOT counting the X-factor types of things like looting mobs, violent riots, etc.  How does this relate?  Well viral infections are all part of that element, and you may not have medicine or experts to apply medicinal knowledge.

San Quentin Chickenpox (Dah Quentin C-PAC)

by funklord

Add one more to the ever growing list of diseases ravaging the population, albeit the prison system.  San Quentin is in medical lockdown after several inmates came down with the childhood disease.  The prison system is worse than college as far as spreading of disease goes.  Small living spaces, close quarters for eating, exposure to bodily fluids (blood from shiv attacks, prison rapings, etc.)  I am actually shocked that this hasn’t happened to a prison before.  More disease breaking out on the west coast.