(Location: California, USA)
Every now and then, the local news & local government announces that a TB case has been identified in the community, and it gives a list of possible locations & times at which people maybe have been exposed to it.
Example: Active TB case identified at X Gym. Possible locations include ABC train route, DEF school, XYZ grocery store…
Why is contact tracing for TB so much more serious than the flu or common cold?
In: Biology
Tuberculosis (old timey name “the consumption”, if you read victorian/colonial setting books there’s probably at least one background character dying/dead from it in your protagonist’s family or social circle) gradually destroys the lungs – as in, “eats actual caverns into your lung tissue until you have none left” – until you choke to death. With antibiotics it is no longer a death sentence, but if you get it there is still approximately as much chance of dying from it as from a single round of russian roulette.
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