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I would guess that there is probably at least a very narrow window of opportunity between the moment when the earliest symptoms develop and the earliest moment when the symptoms would be obvious enough to make smallpox a suspicion. In other words, during those first few hours when you start coming down with something, you usually don't know for sure whether it is just a cold, the flu, or something more serious. It is that time period when a contagious kid could infect dozens at school, maybe more dozens on the school bus, the rest of the family, then dozens more in the waiting room. All within the course of perhaps three or four hours.

Actually, that is incorrect. According to the CDC:

Twelve to 14 days after infection, the patient typically becomes febrile and has severe aching pains and prostration. Some 2 to 3 days later, a papular rash develops over the face and spreads to the extremities). The rash soon becomes vesicular and later, pustular . The patient remains febrile throughout the evolution of the rash and customarily experiences considerable pain as the pustules grow and expand.

So there are initial symptoms which are likely to cause the person to become bedridden, BEFORE the rash appears. So there is no "window of opportunity".

Well, for my last comment on this- I do have work to do today, unfortunately.

I think that your title for this SLATE article("THE GOOD NEWS ABOUT SMALLPOX") just bothered me. There really IS no good news, and if it were to be used as a weapon, the consequences (I believe) would be about as horrible for us and for the rest of the world as anyone could possibly imagine. Yet you are peddling false reassurance, and a sort of "move on, folks, nothing to see here" attitude that I associate with the senior management of the Post Office, or the Reno Justice Department.

You have consistently missed the point of my posts, and answered arguments that I have not made. This leads me to believe that you have some agenda- although it is hard to guess what it is.

In any case, I do have other things to do. Salud!

So there are initial symptoms which are likely to cause the person to become bedridden, BEFORE the rash appears. So there is no "window of opportunity".

Yes, but that "bedridden" child is not going to be kept in bed waiting for the MD to visit. They'll be taken to a clinic or the emergency room, and the MD will examine them THERE -- after they have sat in a crowded waiting room for an hour or so, like usual.

A patient won't be known to have smallpox until an MD has examined them and diagnosed them as having smallpox. And in this day and age, that isn't going to happen in their bed at home, but in an examining room, after the patient has passed through a waiting room.

And of course, a single parent who is working and trying to support a family may not exactly be the perfect "Dr. Mom" when it comes to practicing proper isolation procedures, getting the patient to medical attention promptly, and making sure that they don't wear infected clothes to work, etc.