[ChemistCat]

I've gotten on many a long air voyage well and gotten off sick. I've seen kids at school and adults at work who are so sick they can hardly stand up, yet they feared draconian attendance policies enough to go anyway. I myself have sent a kid to school whom I thought was only whining, only to get a phone call from the nurse--your kid has a fever, come get her. Again, third world models won't apply to a hectic American society. We simply do not behave the same way, and it is behavior that dictates how disease spreads.

[John Jorsett]

Behavior will adapt, just as we're adapting to the mailed anthrax threat. With the first outbreak of a transmittable disease like smallpox or plague, I predict that no one visibly ill would be permitted to enter an airplane or any area guarded by security personnel.

I know that I'm not likely to persuade you that the risk is overblown, so I hope we get through this time of such threats quickly, so that people can go back to not fearing for their lives on a daily basis.