Missing information

With reference to Janet Cowden (Gaz 24/11) the missing information is of course population increase and density.

No doubt those people living in the late 19th century learned both the need for improved hygiene and social distancing as their best means of controlling serious disease.

The best example is right here in Victoria with rapid spread of coronavirus in the city, but easily controlled spread in regional areas.

Indeed, in the past we have slowed the rate of infections with Salmonella infection in a paddock of sheep by opening all the gates on a farm to spread them as wide as possible. Social distancing in the animal world.

The decision of human beings to be “herd’ orientated, and for safety to live together in large numbers, is conducive to severe spread of communicable disease once it gains access to the ‘herd’.

Thus, the need to improve the immune resistance to serious diseases by vaccination.

The size of populations living together in our cities today, compared with the times quoted by Janet, substantially increases the need for vaccines to prevent the type of spread of diseases we have seen in the past and especially in the recent pandemic.

The question is asked what other history should antivaxxers look at, presumably to support their so far unsubstantiated theories.

Probably they would look more closely at the evidence generated in more recent times, as we have death with killer diseases the likes of smallpox, polio, whooping cough and an abundance of human and animal diseases.

By the way, if we are encouraged to look into history to support the antivaxxer mob, it is worth noting that in the Middle Ages, the end of the plague was celebrated with wine and orgies.

Is anything like that planned by the antivaxxers in the near future?

Ralph Slaughter, Drouin