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Typhus had devastated the inhabitants of the Warsaw ghetto until October 1941, Stone discovered. But then it mysteriously seemed to decline at the end of the year, just before winter, when typhus epidemics historically worsened. At first Stone feared that death records at this time were incomplete, but eventually found confirmation of the decline in a historian’s daily accounts of the ghetto. Neighboring towns did not experience a similar drop in typhus that winter, indicating that something different was happening in Warsaw.
Although a fairly effective typhus vaccine was invented shortly before the start of WWII and may even have been smuggled in the Warsaw ghetto, it is thought that few people had access to it. And it would be decades before effective typhus antibiotics were widely available. So, as far as the historical records and Stone’s research can tell, it’s likely that community members and doctors relied on older public health measures to stop the outbreak.
These measures included better sanitation and hygienic practices for residents, bolstered by educational conferences which hundreds of people were able to attend, according to Calcul. There were also reports from underground universities, where young medical students were trained on how best to respond to epidemic diseases like typhus. And there was probably some social distancing, although that wouldn’t have been considered a very new thing at the time.
“It was like a fact of common knowledge, ‘Stay away from someone with typhus because you don’t want to be the next person the lice prey on,” Stone said.
These meses only alleviated the devastation caused by typhus this year, and the Nazis actively sabotaged efforts to provide people with more food and other resources, exacerbating the death toll from the epidemic. Stone’s model suggests that around 100,000 people contracted typhus during this period, many of which went unreported, and this played a significant role in the 80,000 to 100,000 deaths his team suspects also occurred in 1941, as well. than famine. But they likely prevented a much worse outbreak that could have been two to three times larger, Stone said. Unfortunately, in 1942 many ghetto residents began to be sent to the Nazi death camps which ultimately killed millions of people.
Stone’s work began before the covid-19 pandemic, and the two diseases are very significantly different (among other things, covid-19 is much less fatal than typhus, and it is spread through respiration, not through lice). But he thinks his team’s findings are particularly timely.
“One thing to remember would be that public health measures during an outbreak can be effective, even if you don’t realize they are working. In Warsaw, most people were starving and probably didn’t know what was going on around them or what they were doing was really helping, ”Stone said.
While studying the rise of the Warsaw epidemic, Stone also noted the role played by the stigmatization of minority communities. The Nazis cited typhus as the reason for isolating Jewish residents of the ghettos, and guards shot at people trying to escape, sometimes under the guise of preventing epidemics. Covid-19 has also affected minority groups in the United States disproportionately more than others, and the Trump administration has regularly blamed foreigners for spreading the coronavirus and fueling xenophobia.
Like typhus, covid-19 has a knack for exploiting divisions in the world around it. That doesn’t have to be the end of the story, however. The details might have been different during World War II, but the same principles apply today: A disease spread by people can also be stopped by people, even in the absence of a quick fix or cure. a vaccine.
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