Let's Execute People Who Spread Their Cold Germs
Claire Berlinski, Ed. ·
Dec 27, 2010 at 5:45am
I'm wondering why we consider it a very grave crime to drive drunk, but not to get on a crowded subway when you have obvious symptoms of an upper respiratory tract infection.
What's the moral difference, really?
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Re: Let's Execute People Who Spread Their Cold Germs
Generally, the fellow on the subway does not put anyone in the morgue.
Re: Let's Execute People Who Spread Their Cold Germs
Wrong. Flu kills 30-50 thousand Americans every year. He may not be putting anyone in the morgue on that particular trip, but he's certainly taking the risk--just like the drunk driver.
Re: Let's Execute People Who Spread Their Cold Germs
Also, a sick person on a subway isn't operating, with impaired faculties, what amounts to a 3 ton killing machine.
And there's something about a drunk driving casualty that seems more preventable. You can control how much you drink and whether you get behind the wheel, but you can't control whether you get sick. That said, you can control whether or not you get on that subway. But maybe you have no other way to get from point A to point B other than public transport?
Re: Let's Execute People Who Spread Their Cold Germs
You can absolutely control behavior highly likely to spread infection. And given the incredibly high costs associated every year with colds and flus--economic, obviously, but also just sheer human misery--why is there so little stigma associated with reckless behavior when it comes to spreading these infections? I'm serious. Not about executing people who cough in the subway, but certainly about puzzling at the difference in opprobrium. The acts seem morally similar in relevant ways.
Edited on Dec 27, 2010 at 6:44amJun '10
Re: Let's Execute People Who Spread Their Cold Germs
It does raise the question why paper face mask and hand-sanitizer dispensers aren't commonly seen in subway stations. A cheap and effective step compared to so much public health-related expenditures
Re: Let's Execute People Who Spread Their Cold Germs
Emily Esfahani Smith, Ed.
Also, a sick person on a subway isn't operating, with impaired faculties, what amounts to a 3 ton killing machine.
Is the weight of the killing machine relevant? Or the lethality of the instrument to the victims?
Nov '10
Re: Let's Execute People Who Spread Their Cold Germs
In fairness, Claire, influenza and colds are not the same thing. Influenza kills people, but people who have it usually feel completely awful and aren't running around on the subway. Those annoying people on the subway are uncomfortable with common colds, and may make you equally uncomfortable, but aren't really likely to kill you.
Nov '10
Re: Let's Execute People Who Spread Their Cold Germs
As the doctor once said: I don't get sick because I keep my fingers out of my eyes, my mouth, and my nose. That was the doctor saying that. I put my fingers in those spots on a regular basis, so I am constantly sick.
Re: Let's Execute People Who Spread Their Cold Germs
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
Emily Esfahani Smith, Ed.
Also, a sick person on a subway isn't operating, with impaired faculties, what amounts to a 3 ton killing machine.
Is the weight of the killing machine relevant? Or the lethality of the instrument to the victims? · Dec 27 at 6:46am
If we're talking about scale, I think it is.
Of course, there are relevant counter-examples: for instance, if someone has a particularly virulent strain of a deadly virus, then they may be able to do more harm than a drunk person behind a wheel. But what if the sick person doesn't realize that they have such a virulent strain of such a virus? Or what if the sickness is in its early stages? Should they assume a risk averse position and quarantine themselves if they start sniffling and coughing?
Re: Let's Execute People Who Spread Their Cold Germs
Let's say I concede the point (though I'm not sure I do; it actually seems hard for many to determine whether they have a harmless cold or a lethal influenza virus, and in some, influenza causes milder, cold-like symptoms). Colds may not kill, but are a major source of lost productivity--and lost happiness. They frequently lead to debilitating secondary infections. Why do we treat as perfectly normal the decision recklessly to risk immiserating others by exposing them to our colds?
Re: Let's Execute People Who Spread Their Cold Germs
Yes, I would argue that this is just what people should do the minute they start sniffing and coughing, especially since this is when the viruses tend to be most infectious.
Jun '10
Re: Let's Execute People Who Spread Their Cold Germs
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
Let's say I concede the point (though I'm not sure I do; it actually seems hard for many to determine whether they have a harmless cold or a lethal influenza virus, and in some, influenza causes milder, cold-like symptoms). Colds may not kill, but are a major source of lost productivity--and lost happiness. They frequently lead to debilitating secondary infections. Why do we treat as perfectly normal the decision recklessly to risk immiserating others by exposing them to our colds? · Dec 27 at 7:05am
It's a valuable lesson about where you rank in the lives of most people on the street. Do ill strangers care if the cold or flu they gave you, on the bus, ends in fatal pneumonia for you? Not too much. Life goes on.
Jul '10
Re: Let's Execute People Who Spread Their Cold Germs
Just as the cautious driver avoids the roads at closing time, the cautious traveller also avoids the disease vector and crime and terror target that is public transport. Conclude about New Yorkers what you will.
Jul '10
Re: Let's Execute People Who Spread Their Cold Germs
I haven't decided what circle of hell to consign those people who bravely struggle into work with nasty upper respiratory infections and expect praise for being selfless team players. Mid-way from the top, perhaps.
Re: Let's Execute People Who Spread Their Cold Germs
People cough and sneeze into their hands and then don't think twice holding onto the rails in buses and subways, where they'll spread their germs around for everyone else to touch. What it comes down to is a bunch of inconsiderate people who couldn't care less if others caught their illness.
Carry Purell around and take C and Zinc before using public transportation or flying in an airplane.
May '10
Re: Let's Execute People Who Spread Their Cold Germs
Diane Ellis, Ed.: People cough and sneeze into their hands and then don't think twice holding onto the rails in buses and subways, where they'll spread their germs around for everyone else to touch.
Carry Purell around and take C and Zinc before using public transportation or flying in an airplane. · Dec 27 at 9:13am
The best thing about winter: gloves!
Wash your hands, wash your hands, wash your hands. Also, as Ken Owsley suggests, keep those hands off your mucus membranes.
And if you're worried about flu, get the vaccine. It may not completely protect you from contracting the infection, but it is very efficacious in blunting the severity of the disease and preventing the secondary infections/pneumonia that are often fatal. BTW, the fatalities are usually in the very young and very old, in other words, those with predisposing weakness. Only the recent H1N1 seemed to affect the normally healthy disproportionally.
Oh, and wash your hands.
Re: Let's Execute People Who Spread Their Cold Germs
Alternatively, one could abandon places where one has to ride the bus or the subway, live in the sticks, and drive your own car -- as I do.
But, if you have small children (as I also do), you will not escape -- for they are petrie dishes designed to collect infections, nourish them, and pass them on.
For what it is worth, after years of suffering in this fashion (I kept on renewing the resource by means of procreation), I started taking Vitamin D -- and lo and behold: these days I rarely catch the diseases that my young ones bring home.
Who knows? Maybe, Vitamin D would work in New York or Istanbul.
I still have not figured out how to compensate for the drunk behind the wheel.
Sep '10
Re: Let's Execute People Who Spread Their Cold Germs
Diane Ellis, Ed.: People cough and sneeze into their hands and then don't think twice holding onto the rails in buses and subways, where they'll spread their germs around for everyone else to touch. What it comes down to is a bunch of inconsiderate people who couldn't care less if others caught their illness.
Carry Purell around and take C and Zinc before using public transportation or flying in an airplane. · Dec 27 at 9:13am
People spread their germs everywhere. Wonder if I caught my cold by touching a copy of Jesse Ventura's American Conspiracies at the library.
Jul '10
Re: Let's Execute People Who Spread Their Cold Germs
When they pass out the perfect attendance awards at my daughter's school, I want to stand up and holler, "Thank you all for infecting the rest of us by sending your kids to school SICK!" Never had the guts to do it, though.
Jul '10
Re: Let's Execute People Who Spread Their Cold Germs
Claire Berlinski, Ed.: "I'm wondering why we consider it a very grave crime to drive drunk, but not to get on a crowded subway when you have obvious symptoms of an upper respiratory tract infection.
What's the moral difference, really?"
To me, the difference is reckless intent. No sane person looks forward to his next infection. But lots of perfectly sane people look forward to their next opportunity to climb behind the wheel, go bar-hopping, and get hammered.
Whether the rest of us like it or not (and I admit I don't), lots of people simply don't have the option to drop out of life for a few days every time they get sick. They have obligations to work and family that require them to soldier on as best they can. On the other hand, nobody is required to drink to excess and drive, ever.