What The LA Smallpox Epidemics Of The 1800s Can Teach Us About Covid Today
As the bleak winter of 1862 dragged on into 1863, the isolated, ramshackle town of Los Angeles was visited by a terrifying scourge — smallpox. With its telltale fever and disfiguring skin rash, the highly infectious disease jumped from adobe to adobe, killing more than 100 people and sickening hundreds of others. If those numbers don't sound like much, remember L.A. had only 4,000 or so souls at the time and the outbreak wiped out half of its indigenous residents. "The city's smallpox wagon, dubbed the 'black Maria,' was a frequent and disheartening sight as it rolled through the streets ca...
Source: laist.com