YES! Deliberate exposure ends it the quickest, so kills the smallest number of people possible.
And since those under 40 are 400 times less likely to die, that is not a high risk.
That is how most epidemics are ended, since vaccines have only existed for 200 years are take too long.
Like Washington to the Continental Army in 1777.
As commander of the Continental Army, Washington faced dual enemies: the British and smallpox. So he made a risky call.
www.history.com
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Washington also knew that his American-born soldiers were far more susceptible to the disease than the European enemy. That’s because smallpox was endemic in England, meaning that a high percentage of British troops had already contracted the disease as children and now carried lifelong immunity.
In contrast, relatively few New Englanders and Southerners had ever been exposed to the virus. For example, only 23 percent of North Carolina soldiers who enlisted in 1777 had ever had smallpox.
Armed only with a primitive understanding of contagion and immunity, Washington had to decide between several anti-smallpox schemes, each with its own significant risks.
“It comes down to herd immunity,” says Fenn. “You either have to let people be exposed to the disease and naturally acquire immunity, which could be devastating for his troops and have devastating consequences for the war. Or somehow quarantine your troops, which means they’re not going to be able to fight. Or immunize them.”
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The best inoculation technique at Washington’s disposal during the Revolutionary War was a nasty and sometimes fatal method called “variolation.”
“An inoculation doctor would cut an incision in the flesh of the person being inoculated and implant a thread laced with live pustular matter into the wound,” explains Fenn. “The hope and intent was for the person to come down with smallpox. When smallpox was conveyed in that fashion, it was usually a milder case than it was when it was contracted in the natural way.”
Variolization still had a case fatality rate of 5 to 10 percent. And even if all went well, inoculated patients still needed a month to recover. The procedure was not only risky for the individual patient, but for the surrounding population. An inoculee with a mild case might feel well enough to walk around town, infecting countless others with potentially more serious infections.
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“The small pox has made such Head in every Quarter that I find it impossible to keep it from spreading thro’ the whole Army in the natural way. I have therefore determined, not only to innoculate all the Troops now here, that have not had it, but shall order Docr. Shippen to innoculate the Recruits as fast as they come in to Philadelphia.”
Fenn says that inoculating all troops without natural smallpox immunity was a daunting task. First, medical personnel had to examine each individual to determine if they had contracted the disease in the past, then they conducted the risky variolation procedure, followed by a month-long recovery process attended by teams of nurses.
Meanwhile, this entire process—the first of its kind and scale—had to be conducted in total secrecy. If the British caught wind that large numbers of American soldiers were laid up in bed with smallpox, it could be the end.
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