Binghamton University

Undergraduate Thesis

COVID-19 and Typhoid Fever: An Analysis of the Importance of

Transparency in Journalism During Disease Outbreak

Author: Nicole Marks Kaufman Advisor: Jessie Reeder

ENG 499 May 18, 2021

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I. Introduction

On March 16, 2020, the life I had always known changed forever. In a B-Line News

Addition for Binghamton University, the University declared that “In-person classes are now

ended for the remainder of the semester” as part of New York State’s response to the COVID-19

virus. COVID-19 is a virus that first emerged in Wuhan, China, at a seafood and poultry market,

and since its initial appearance, “has spread to nearly every country, upending life and derailing

the global economy” (Taylor 2021). Since the first diagnosis of the first patient, there have been

163,312,429 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 3,386,825 deaths globally as of May 18, 2021,

according to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) COVID-19 dashboard. From January 3,

2020 to May 18, 2021, the U.S. alone has seen 32,623,220 confirmed COVID-19 cases and

580,468 deaths.

When COVID-19 was first reported by the media to have entered the U.S. on January 31,

2020, it was in Washington state. Being in New York at the time, and not yet understanding the

intricacies of the virus itself, not many people here were too worried about it. Even though the

WHO declared a public health emergency, nobody was concerned yet at Binghamton University.

The semester started like any other — with crowded classrooms, crowded dorms, and crowded

social settings. I remember one of my professors telling the class that the 2020 election cycle was

going to be a much larger story than COVID-19. Another professor initially told us not to worry,

and they were still planning their trip to China at the end of the semester. In early March, the first

cases in New York emerged in New Rochelle in Westchester County, a mere thirty-five miles

from my home. A long weekend was coming up, and many fellow Westchester County residents

and I chose to stay in Binghamton because it was safer. By March 19, the National Guard was

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scheduled to move in, and New Rochelle became the largest cluster of COVID-19 the U.S. had

seen.

No one will forget the last crowded setting they were in before COVID-19. I was going

out to dinner with some friends at the beginning of March, and we were all laughing because one

of them decided to start wearing a mask out. Little did we know that by April 1, within mere

weeks, New York State would shut down completely and implement a mask mandate. It was the

aforementioned March 16 date that hit me the hardest — when I realized that the remainder of

my junior year of college was going to be spent at home on my computer, and the fate of my

senior year remained unclear. At this point, everyone was scared, and nobody knew how to

prepare for a global pandemic. Toilet paper and cleaning supplies were in such short supply that

people were limited to picking up one package of each — assuming the store even had any in

stock (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Photo taken by Dave Sanders for The New York Times of “Jason Krigsfeld, 31, and his wife, Yukie Huchi, 39, [shopping] at a Target in Brooklyn on Friday morning. They bought the last 20-pack of Charmin toilet paper on the shelf” (Knoll 2020).

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This was the first global pandemic of this magnitude that the current population of the

world had ever seen, but it is certainly not the first time a disease has plagued the world’s

population. When you learn about the Black Death or the numerous plagues of cholera in school,

you don’t think that something like this could happen in the world today, especially given

medical technological advancements made in the past 100 years. Many have turned to the most

recent pandemic of such a large magnitude to gain a greater understanding of living through an

era of disease — the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918. It is eerie looking at photos then and seeing

the similarity to photos today, particularly with both populations being masked. Many have

compared and contrasted the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Scholars at the National Center for Biotechnology Information at the National Institute of Health

have published numerous articles linking and comparing the two, including articles titled

“COVID-19 infection may increase the risk of parkinsonism – Remember the Spanish flu?” and

“COVID 19 and Spanish flu pandemics: All it changes, nothing changes.” Numerous pandemic

documentaries have also sprung up on both cable news networks, such as PBS broadcasting the

1998 documentary Influenza 1918, and streaming services, such as Netflix’s Pandemic: How to

Prevent an Outbreak. There are likely two reasons why the media and the general population

have chosen the Spanish Flu: the fact that it is the most recent pandemic of this magnitude and

that COVID-19 and the flu share many similar symptoms, including a fever, sore throat, a cough,

and more.

With much established scholarship connecting these two pandemics, I was interested in

adding to this conversation by placing COVID-19 in conversation with another disease outbreak

— the typhoid fever outbreak in Victorian England. I specifically look at the time period from

1850-1900 because there were many similarities (outside of purely the disease outbreak) between

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Victorian England and the current state of the United States, including environmental and

structural inequities, xenophobia and prejudice toward other cultures, and political turmoil. All

of these facets of society were impacted by the presence of a massive disease outbreak during

both of these time periods. Specifically, these facets were each exacerbated by the respective

disease of either typhoid fever or COVID-19, and they simultaneously exacerbated the spread of

disease as well. Both Victorian England’s government officials and United States’ government

officials approached the containment of disease in similar fashion — through the implementation

of disease surveillance. Given the similarities in the climate of both Victorian England and the

present-day United States in addition to their similar approaches to containing and monitoring

their respective diseases, it is more than appropriate to compare the two in order to broaden the

conversation surrounding COVID-19 in relation to past outbreaks and the future.

Specifically, I was most interested in examining the media’s approach to a pandemic.

Being a student journalist throughout my time at Binghamton University, and reporting on such

matters myself, I was eager to see what aspects of a pandemic were written about and who was

shaping the narrative. For this project, I opted to analyze purely print media. Newspapers were

the sole form of journalism during the Victorian era, and I chose to keep this aspect of media

consistent as I researched the present day COVID-19 crisis. In The Times, a newspaper published

in Victorian London, I completed an analysis of varying articles from The Times during the time

period of 1850-1900. England saw much disease-related turmoil at this moment between the

death of Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, in 1861 from typhoid fever and the near-death

experience of their son, Prince Albert Edward, ten years later, who miraculously recovered from

typhoid fever. I drew analysis mostly from letters everyday citizens wrote in response to the

current state of the typhoid outbreak in England.

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In keeping with the theme of written media, I solely analyzed responses to the COVID-19

pandemic in written newspaper articles that were published online from March 2020 to 2021.

Full-length letters are rarely printed by newspapers today, as the written structure of journalism

has changed in the past century. Rather than printing every word a source speaks, journalists

select specific sentences and decide which ones to use as quotes for their articles. Due to this

change in writing style among journalists, it was impossible to keep this aspect of my research

consistent.

England’s subjects were suffering from many of the same conditions American citizens

are enduring today. First, harmful environmental conditions, specifically improper ventilation,

inability to access clean water, and the expansion of food deserts, exacerbated both the typhoid

and COVID-19 outbreaks, respectively. Yet, these detrimental environmental conditions had a

mutually reinforcing relationship with disease outbreak, as they were simultaneously exacerbated

by the pandemic as well. Second, both subjects of the expanding British Empire and current

American citizens have been victims of xenophobic attacks. While newspapers from both of

these time periods report on this matter, newspapers from both Victorian England and today

permit the continuation of a damaging discourse that decenters and silences the voices that need

to be heard the most — the oppressed. Third, both time periods were met with a toxic wave of

nationalism, as government leaders during both disease outbreaks contracted the respective

disease. This occurred despite the democratization of medical knowledge, as both governments

utilized the media to disseminate medical information pertaining to their respective disease.

Finally, both governments implemented systems of national disease surveillance, which forced

the media to act as checks and balances by providing a platform for suppressed voices to speak.

However, comprehending the positionality of those who are able to participate in the media is

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critical, as, without this understanding, the stories that need to be told the most would become

the most neglected.

With such similar, detrimental conditions in both countries during both time periods, why

has nothing changed? Why have the same groups remained oppressed while the same elite

governmental officials still have access to exclusive resources? I don’t know all of these

answers, but my research shows that the media has facilitated this inequity for well over a

century now. During Victorian England, by publishing the entire source’s letter, the newspapers

had a much higher level of transparency. They kept articles strictly to observations — albeit

subjective observations made by reporters. However, by publishing the commentary they are

given in its entirety, The Times greatly differs from newspapers today, who pick and choose

which quotes to use in order to shape the narrative they see fit. Journalists have an ethical

obligation to report objectively with full transparency, but that doesn’t guarantee this obligation

will be met. The transparency in journalism declined when journalists began to fragment quotes

as they saw fit, which gave them the discretion to shape the narrative they hoped to push rather

than publishing the complete stories of their sources. This decline of transparency in journalism

over the past century has facilitated the stagnation of progress toward ending structural

oppression, which becomes increasingly aggravated during times of disease outbreak. This is

evidenced by the media’s response to both the typhoid fever outbreak and the COVID-19

pandemic, the intersection of environmental factors, xenophobia, political turmoil and

surveillance.

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II. Environmental Factors Contributing to Disease and Societal

Inequity

It is no secret that Victorian England was disgusting — John Simon, “Victorian Britain’s

leading health authority” at the time even published a report titled Filth-Diseases and Their

Prevention (Steere-Williams 1). Released “as a supplement to Simon’s annual report as medical

officer of the local government board,” Filth-Diseases and Their Prevention was a response to

“the nineteenth century’s most enigmatic infectious disease, typhoid fever” and the “filth”

conditions of the era (Steere-Williams 1). According to the Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention (CDC), typhoid, or enteric, fever is “spread through sewage contamination of food or

water and through person-to-person contact” (“Questions and Answers” CDC). This differs from

COVID-19, which, according to the CDC, spreads “mainly through exposure to respiratory

droplets when a person is in close contact with someone who has COVID-19 (“How Coronavirus

Spreads” CDC).

Today, the CDC is constantly changing their website with new guidance on how people

should be behaving during a global pandemic. This information is disseminated to the public

through a top-down approach: the CDC issues new guidance, larger news stations from CNN to

FOX report on them, and local news stations make their own announcements as well. The

general public gets this information essentially instantaneously through these news networks and

the internet, specifically social media platforms like Twitter. In Victorian England, this

information, while also disseminated to the public in a top-down approach, did not spread with

the same speed since the Victorians were not as technologically advanced. The sole form of

communication between “the tops,” such as Parliament and the Medical Department, and “the

bottoms,” or the common person, was through newspapers. As evidenced by reports from

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Victorian newspapers, there were a number of environmental connections and concerns that

arose during the 1850-1900 time period of the typhoid fever epidemic. These concerns align with

environmental concerns we are currently facing with the COVID-19 pandemic: improper

ventilation, the ability to access clean drinking water, and food deserts.

Both Victorians and today’s population are concerned about how disease permeates

throughout enclosed spaces. Specifically for Victorians, their main concern lay in the restroom

and getting proper sewage ventilation. This served as a point of contention between “the tops”

and “the bottoms,” as evidenced by various letters published to the editor of The Times. In 1884,

in a letter to The Times, Henry Howorth of Manchester writes that he self-identifies “as an

ignorant Philistine, savage if you will” (Howorth et al. 5). Howorth identifies “the substitution of

the primitive, wholesome, and natural privies by the abominations good people call water

closets,” or toilets and the introduction to indoor plumbing, as the cause of typhoid fever

(Howorth et al. 5). Howorth continues to provide a solution to the problem of indoor plumbing

and poor ventilation: “It would seem that the germs of disease will not thrive in the decaying

sewage unless it is very diluted, therefore dilution is universal…” (Howorth et al. 5). Howorth’s

dilution solution contrasts the solution taken up by “self-righteous architects” at the time, who

were “fond of sounding the praises of traps” (Howorth et al. 5). Had traps been able to retain

“pure water” constantly, they “would be a harmless barrier to the gases from the drains, but it is

impossible to keep it full of pure water” (Howorth et al. 5). Rather, the traps housed “putrefying

matter, and instead of being a barrier to the gases, it is itself a reservoir of abominations, a cradle

of [typhoid] fever germs” (Howorth et al. 5).

Theta, another author of a letter to the editor of The Times in 1884, also voiced their

opposition to traps based on personal experience: “This cistern was usually covered by a wooden

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slab, the white paint on the under surface of which had become partially blackened; and it is

evident that unless the foul air emanating from this waste-pipe could escape from beneath this lid

into the atmosphere of the apartment in which the cisten was placed…” (Howorth et al. 5).

However, rather than dilution, Theta proposed “ventilating all water-closet soil-pipes by means

of a pipe carried high up into the air away from windows and chimneys, so that the sewer air

they necessarily contain shall easily escape into a moving atmosphere, where it become

practically harmless” (Howorth et al. 5). Another columnist, W. Hope, directly calls into

question this idea that poor ventilation can cause disease to ruminate indoors: “If sewer gas

produced [typhoid] fever as it escapes into the majority of houses, either continuously or

intermittently, the cases of enteric fever would be almost indefinitely multiplied, and the country

would soon be depopulated” (Latham et al. 12).

W. Hope’s theory goes directly against scientific practices at the time. In 1887, Eliza Jane

Lillington of Bristol began her training as a nurse at Cardiff Infirmary and kept detailed notes

where she discussed her routine (Figure 2). In one of her exercise books, she discusses treatment

for patients with contagious diseases, like typhoid, as “blanket measures [that] were applied to

prevent the spread of infection by controlling the patient’s environment and destroying

pathogens” (The Royal College of Nursing). In her notes, Lillington urges that “all bed curtains,

hanging carpets, articles of dress in wardrobes and all unnecessary furniture be removed,” and

the “room [should be] well ventilated [with] windows partly open” (Lillington, The Royal

College of Nursing). Lillington adds that, “the floor [should] be sprinkled daily with disinfectant

fluid, and thoroughly cleaned” (Lillington, The Royal College of Nursing). The opinions of W.

Hope and Lillington demonstrate a stark contrast between professional opinions and lay opinions

regarding disease and treatment plans, a contrast that is still seen today.

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Figure 2: Nurse Eliza Jane Lillington of Bristol kept notes on how she treated her patients, which included Lillington emphasizing the importance of ventilation (The Royal College of Nursing)

We are seeing similar recommendations being made today regarding the COVID-19

pandemic from numerous healthcare professionals. The United States Environmental Protection

Agency (EPA) states that, “Ensuring proper ventilation with outside air can help reduce the

concentration of airborne contaminants, including viruses, indoors” (EPA). The CDC also has an

entire page dedicated to improving ventilation both in buildings and in your home. Additionally,

many states have also limited the number of people that could attend an indoor gathering at

different points during the COVID-19 pandemic. We have also seen numerous people, from the

everyday person to former U.S. President Donald Trump, violate these orders. On September 13,

2020, Trump held an indoor rally, which was attended by “thousands of supporters” (LeBlanc et

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al. 2020). The rally was held in Nevada and “was expected to violate the state’s restriction on

gatherings of 50 people or more” (LeBlanc et al. 2020).

Whether it is typhoid fever or COVID-19, healthcare professionals are often seen

advocating for one solution, and they face pushback from a vast range of people — the everyday

person to the President of the United States. In some instances, this pushback is rooted in

distrust. This has been the case with Flint, Michigan, during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2014,

the city began sourcing water from the Flint River in an effort to save money, and “state

regulators [insisted] the water [was] safe” after doctors found “high levels of lead in children’s

blood” (The Associated Press 2021). The state was later found responsible for telling their

residents the water was safe to drink, when it was actually contaminated with lead (The

Associated Press 2021). This lead exposure has left Flint’s citizens with “underlying conditions

believed to negatively impact COVID-19 patients,” so Flint’s water crisis “might well have

contributed to the [COVID-19] deaths in Flint by putting residents at higher risk of

complications” (Fleming 2020). Now, with mass vaccination distribution underway, some Flint

residents don’t trust that the vaccine is safe to take: “Hesitancy is particularly high in some Black

communities, which have a history of being discriminated against in the U.S. health care system

(and beyond)” (Jimenez 2021).

Access to clean drinking water was a concern during the Victorian period as well. In a

column, titled “Poisoned water,” a letter to the editor of The Times from A Member of the Late

Royal Sanitary Commission cites “polluted wells” as “a vast evil,” stating that they are “the

source not only of cholera, but of enteric fever” (A Member of the Late Royal Sanitary

Commission 1871). This Member of the Late Royal Sanitary Commission expressed concern

over the centralized approach the government was taking at the time: “It is proposed…that any

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inhabited house without an adequate supply of wholesome water, or access to an adequate supply

within a reasonable distance shall be liable to be treated as a ‘nuisance’ within the meaning of

the term as used in the present Nuisances Removal Acts” (A Member of the Late Royal Sanitary

Commission 1871). According to the U.K. Parliament, the Nuisances Removal Acts gave local

authorities the power to deal with nuisances, or anything that could be potentially hazardous to

public health. This Member of the Late Royal Sanitary Commission fears “ignorance” among

public officials, as they have the “power to direct that such supply, or access to such supply, shall

be obtained, and (if necessary) to prohibit the use of [an inhabited house] until the order is

complied with” (A Member of the Late Royal Sanitary Commission 1871). In order to prevent

corruption, given that the local authorities had the “power to order [a location deemed a

nuisance] to be temporarily or permanently closed,” this Member of the Late Royal Sanitary

Commission calls for “a simple test” for water purity (A Member of the Late Royal Sanitary

Commission 1871).

Water and housing were not the only bare necessities at risk during the typhoid epidemic

in Victorian England. Milk, “a vital nutritional product — nature’s perfect food — especially for

the burgeoning middle classes,” became a super-spreader for the disease and did not differentiate

based on class (Steere-Williams 131). The 1873 Marylebone Milk Crisis “was critical for raising

the profile of milk’s link to typhoid to an unprecedented level” (Steere-Williams 131). When the

children of a local doctor from the St. Marylebone parish of London came down with typhoid

fever, he conducted an investigation to find the source of the disease (Steere-Williams 129).

During his investigation, the doctor found that “forty out of forty-three families that he visited,

all close friends whose children were suffering from typhoid, received milk from one source: the

Dairy Reform Company” (Steere-Williams 130). While this was “not the first outbreak of

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typhoid to be traced to a contaminated milk supply,” the Marylebone Milk Crisis drew national

attention since it “struck the houses of England’s elite doctors, no doubt [contributing] to the

popularization of the outbreak and the heightened anxiety over milk” (Steere-Williams 130).

Alfred Smer, the Croydon chemist and surgeon, embraced the top-down approach the

newspapers facilitated regarding the dissemination of medical information and published a

column titled “Milk and Typhoid Fever” directly responding to Marylebone Milk Crisis: “The

time has arrived for grouping the valuable information which the milk controversy has elicited”

(Smer 1873). Again, this is not the first time that milk has been linked to a typhoid outbreak.

This makes Smer’s timing particularly worth noting, as it becomes “time” to disperse “valuable

information” to the public regarding milk now that it has impacted London’s elite doctors. Smer

identified diseased cows as the cause of the outbreak, as when cows are fed from sewage fields

“the putrid state of the milk and butter [becomes] apparent” (Smer 1873). In this way, “studies of

milk-borne typhoid fever…collided with already contentious debates about food safety and

agricultural productivity” (Steere-Williams 131). While Smer was quick to call “town sewage

irrigation as now practised…a failure and dangerous to health,” he offered no solid plan on how

to remedy the situation: “At present there appears to be no plan which can be absolutely

recommended, but the question of sewage must be practically dealt with” (Smer 1873). This

acknowledgment of milk having the potential to cause typhoid outbreaks and lack of a solid

solution to address the problem particularly impacted the middle class, as they were milk’s

largest consumer group: “…the public discourse on milk had to contend with a grave new worry:

that milk, infused with typhoid excreta, often spread infectious disease” (Steere-Williams 131).

This milk-borne outbreak thus caused food insecurity within London’s middle class population.

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Food insecurity is also an issue that has been on the rise since the COVID-19 pandemic

began in March 2020. There has been a 32.3%, or roughly one-third, “increase in household food

insecurity since COVID-19” in the United States (Haskell 2021). One of the main reasons for

this spike has been the downturn of the economy and rise in unemployment rates, which has led

to a spike in the number of residents living in food insecure areas, specifically a 43% spike in

Louisiana, 36% in Mississippi, and 118% in Kentucky (Meyersohn 2020). Many have been

reliant on federal programs, including numerous COVID-19 relief bills and food stamps, to put

food on the table each day. A few months into the COVID-19 pandemic, President Trump’s

administration wanted to cut food-stamp benefits specifically to senior citizens housed in

supportive living facilities across the country (Picchi 2020). The program “helps low-income

seniors by allowing their facilities to pool food-stamp benefits and purchase food on their behalf,

with the lawmakers noting that this helps disabled and elderly residents who otherwise couldn’t

get to a grocery store” (Picchi 2020). Again, government officials are making the issue of food

deserts worse. However, the Trump administration went beyond simply not providing a solution,

like Smer in Victorian England, but they actively pursued legislation that would make a bad

situation worse.

Media, whether it’s a physical newspaper or social media, permits the dissemination of

information from a top-down approach. Parliament, the Medical Department, and other “tops”

utilized newspapers to promote sanitation during Victorian England. The CDC and other

government organizations depend on media giants, from CNN to FOX, to share important

information with the public. Media is often accused of serving the interests of those in power,

“the tops.” However, I have demonstrated how media can serve as a platform for a breadth of

voices, regardless of medium. In Victorian England, many wrote contributing columns from

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London’s most elite surgeons to “as an ignorant Philistine, savage if you will” (Howorth et al. 5).

While The Times can be praised for their inclusion of such a range, it is much more limited than

meets the eye. In order to contribute to The Times, one must be literate, which often correlates

with obtaining an education. As technology progressed, more were given a voice, as the media

platform expanded into the internet. Yet, again, the scope is limited in that one needs internet

access, often a computer or a smartphone, and sometimes even a newspaper subscription in order

to participate in the conversation. Recognizing this positionality is imperative to fully

understanding the media because only then can the stories of those without the means of sharing

on their own be told.

Additionally, these same environmental factors discussed in the media as exacerbating or

being exacerbated by the spread of disease — improper ventilation, the ability to access to clean

drinking water, and areas that are food deserts — are a major contributing factor to the inequity

in media representation. When faced with such grave concerns, survival tends to trump literacy

and education. This results in a circular argument — it is a tragic irony that these conditions

impact the ability for these voices to be heard, but, if these voices aren’t heard, there is no way to

address these unequal conditions and rectify them.

III. Xenophobia and Disease

The outbreaks of both typhoid fever and COVID-19 have been correlated with the spread

of another plague — hate. Both disease outbreaks have been linked to large spikes in

xenophobia, or prejudice against those from different countries. During Victorian England,

imperialism was spreading, as the British aimed to extensively grow their empire. One of the

British Empire’s major territories, India, was also grappling with typhoid fever. Joseph Fayrer,

an English physician who served as the surgeon general in India, believed that “disease had to be

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studied, ‘not only by the bedside of the metropolitan hospitals, but in all climates, in every

quarter of the globe, in the army, navy, colonies, and in our Indian empire’” (Steere-Williams

233). Fayrer’s main concern, however was not India’s citizens: “…typhoid ‘is an important

cause of mortality among our young European soldiers in India’” (Steere-Williams 233). The

typhoid fever outbreaks in India only caught the attention of the British government once it

impacted their soldiers.

This is also evidenced in a newspaper column in The Times written by Major Ronald

Ross. Ross states that “the Secretary of State for India refused in 1898 to permit officers and

soldiers to undergo” a typhoid fever vaccination regiment voluntarily (Ross 13). The typhoid

fever vaccination, or inoculation as it is often referred to both in scholarship and newspaper

columns, was developed by Almroth Wright, a British bacteriologist and immunologist, that

“promised an end to ‘tropical typhoid,’” another term used to describe “typhoid abroad,”

particularly in South Africa and India in an attempt to differentiate the disease in England from

the disease in other parts of the world (Steere-Williams 28). When addressing what he perceives

as the government not offering the vaccine to soldiers stationed in India, Ross raises concerns

regarding “the private liberty of the soldiers, the health of the army, and the progress of science,”

specifically the “[infringement on] private liberty of action among British soldiers” (Ross 13).

This concern regarding infringement on rights is particularly ironic in Ross’ context, as the

British empire colonized India and completely neglected vaccinating the Indian population

despite the fact that the British government blamed the Indian population for spreading typhoid

fever: “It was no doubt a racial double standard, British medics were blaming the increase of

typhoid on Indians, but it was also focused on preventing the disease in Europeans” (Steere-

Williams 248-249).

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Despite British efforts to differentiate their strain of typhoid fever from the “tropical

typhoid” found in India and South Africa, “the existence of ‘tropical typhoid’ had earlier

centered on the white British male body” (Steere-Williams 248). Again, this is demonstrated in

Ross’ column when he describes Wright’s vaccine as “a means of combating the most fatal

enemy of the British Army” (Ross 13). Ross is placing the white British male soldier at the

center of the discourse surrounding vaccine distribution in India, notably excluding the local

Indian population from the conversation. Unfortunately, Ross was not the only one to engage in

such a destructive discursive practice: “[Russian bacteriologist Waldemar Haffkine], for

example, noted before a meeting of the Royal Society in 1899 that Wright’s vaccine ‘has a

special interest for Europeans…’ particularly ‘soldiers of this country residing in India, and of

white men in general in all tropical countries’” (Steere-Williams 248-249). Haffkine takes this

one step further by expanding the center to not only encapsulate soldiers but all white men in all

of these foreign countries within the British empire. This is particularly destructive for two

reasons. First, it pushes local populations further away as the center expands to include all white

men regardless of military status. Second, this is a doctor speaking to the Royal Society of

London for Improving Natural Knowledge, the United Kingdom’s leading academy of the

sciences. According to the Royal Society’s website, their mission “is to recognise, promote, and

support excellence in science and to encourage the development and use of science for the

benefit of humanity” (The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge). By

promoting this discourse in this setting, doctors like Haffkine are perpetuating a narrative in

which the local populations of these conquered countries, South Africa and India in particular,

are considered less than human by stating that the vaccines must be distributed to the soldiers at

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their expense despite the fact that they were the ones being blamed for initially spreading typhoid

fever.

Other columns in The Times published within a few days of Ross’ column indicate that

Ross’ article was factually inaccurate. Retired Colonel H. Locock said that Ross’ claim is

“erroneous to some extent” in “his assumption as to the refusal of the Secretary of State for India

to allow Government servants to be inoculated” (Locock 4). Locock counters Ross’ claims by

explaining how his “stepson was inoculated in India for typhoid last March, and [Locock’s

stepson] informs [Locock] that there are official circulars in favour of it, and that officers and

men are invited to volunteer to submit to the process” (Locock 4). A second voice, Emeritus,

who has “long since retired from the Indian Army Medical Service,” adds that he would like to

build on Locock’s response with “some further evidence of the haste and thoughtlessness with

which [Ross] has written [his column]” (Emeritus 3). Emeritus shuts down Ross’ claims that the

Secretary of State in India refused to allow soldiers to voluntarily get vaccinated against typhoid

fever and that this refusal was still in force at the time the article was written in 1900. First,

Emeritus explains how “the Secretary of State for India acted merely as a channel for conveying

the decision of the Secretary of State for War, who had an absolute veto on the matter” (Emeritus

3). Second, “the practice of inoculation was revived with the approval of the Secretary of State

for India” in 1899” (Emeritus 3). While Ross’s column is “very misleading” by Emeritus’s

standards, my original points still stand regardless of these factual inaccuracies. Ross’ rhetoric

and subtext still demonstrate a noteworthy lack of consideration for the local Indian population.

This further demonstrates the damaging discursive practices enforced by the British government

at the time, which continuously considered the local population of the British Empire’s colonies

as less than human, thus not worthy of even being considered for inoculation against typhoid

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fever — despite the fact that they are blamed for being spreaders of the disease. As “James

Jameson, director general of the Army Medical Services, wrote on May 31, 1899…‘all soldiers

about to proceed to stations where the disease is prevalent (such as South Africa, India,

Bermuda), should be given the opportunity of being inoculated on their volunteering to undergo

the operation’” (Steere-Williams 249).

Inequity in vaccine distribution is an issue that is persisting currently in the United States

as the fight against COVID-19 continues. Los Angeles is one major city in the United States that

has been a recurring hotspot throughout the pandemic. South L.A., in particular, has been one

site of inequitable vaccine distribution: “The rate of vaccination among white and Asian seniors

in L.A. County is far higher than among Black, Latino and Native American seniors, the very

communities where COVID-19 case and death rates are highest, according to the county data”

(Vives et al. 2021). Numerous Black Americans told The L.A. Times how they have struggled to

make vaccination appointments for various reasons: “South L.A. has very low rates of broadband

internet needed to schedule online appointments and there has been much confusion about how

to maneuver the county’s vaccination website…” (Vives et al. 2021). Local politicians have

taken efforts to mitigate inequity in vaccine accessibility, including “creating more vaccination

sites as well as better public messaging campaigns, improving access to transportation and

reserving spots at neighborhood vaccination locations before people from other parts of the

county can scoop them up” (Vives et al. 2021).

Even with this increase in accessibility, less than 30% of Black Californians “said they

would probably or definitely get vaccinated, according to a survey published by the Public

Policy Institute of California” (Vives et al. 2021). There are countless reasons as to why Black

Americans mistrust the federal government and are hesitant to get vaccinated: “…while some are

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grounded in well-documented abuses of medical experiments, others involve a broader array of

issues, from distrust in government stemming from police brutality, the unequal economic

impact of the pandemic, higher death rates among Black people and the inequitable rollout of

vaccine distribution” (Logan 2021). One particular case of medical abuse was “the Tuskegee

syphilis study, conducted from 1932-1972, [when] federal government scientists knowingly

withheld treatment from an estimated 400 Black male sharecroppers infected with syphilis, even

after penicillin became the drug of choice in the 1940s” (Logan 2021). Similar to Indians in the

British Empire during the Victorian era, the U.S. knowingly and voluntarily withheld inoculation

against a deadly disease from Black Americans. This is not the sole instance of this treatment

toward Black Americans: “Experts say Black people’s mistrust in medicine and government

stretches as far back as American slavery when white doctors repeatedly exploited the bodies of

enslaved Africans in the name of scientific research” (Logan 2021). This exploitation continues

today, as evidenced by a report in The L.A. Times that “revealed a California program intended to

improve vaccine availability for Black people had been misused by outsiders, including some

wealthy white Angelenos” (Logan 2021).

Another reason for this mistrust is the lack of representation of Black doctors. In 1910, a

white, American educator Abraham Flexner released the Flexner report, which is known for

dramatically reforming both medical and higher education in the United States, “but also [led] to

the closing [of] five of the seven Black medical colleges” (Logan 2021). A 2020 study found that

the closing of these colleges has severely impacted the representation in Black doctors today:

“Had the colleges closed in the wake of Flexner’s report remained open, the number of

graduating Black physicians in 2019 could have been 29% higher…” (Logan 2021). Currently,

only 7% of medical students are Black, “and 3% of America’s physicians [are Black] despite

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making up 13% of the country’s population” (Logan 2021). This lack of representation is the

result of damaging discursive practices, similar to those once enforced by the British government

against Indians, which continuously decenter a minority population, thus justifying the treatment

of these communities as less than human and not deserving of medical treatment, specifically

vaccinations.

The Black community is not the only community to feel the devastating impact of “the

[United States] government’s mishandling of the pandemic” (Logan 2021). Numerous news

outlets have reported on the spike in hate crimes against the Asian American community and

how it has culminated in numerous protests across the nation (Figure 3). These stories have

caught the attention of international news outlets, including BBC. BBC recognizes this rise in

hate against the Asian American community as something solely happening in America with

sub-headlines in their article asking “What’s Happening in the US” and “What’s the situation in

California” (Cabral 2021). BBC places blame on the former Trump administration, specifically

regarding “the anti-China rhetoric of former President Donald Trump, who often made mention

of the pandemic as the ‘China virus’ or the ‘kung flu’” (Cabral 2021). Additionally, “some

federal agencies do not even include the Asian American and Pacific Islander community in their

definitions of racial minorities,” thus leading to “the ‘widespread omission’ of Asian Americans

within cultural conversations (Cabral 2021). The United Nations picked up on this spike in hate

crimes against Asian Americans in the United States and “issued a report that detailed ‘an

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alarming level’ of racially motivated violence and other hate incidents against Asian Americans”

(Cabral 2021).

Figure 3: Photo taken by Genaro Molina for The Los Angeles Times of “A rally against anti-Asian violence at Los Angeles State Historic Park on Feb. 20. The rally was organized partly in response to the fatal assault of Vicha Ratanapakdee, an 84-year-old immigrant from Thailand, in San Francisco.” (Do 2021).

Similar to Indians in the British Empire, Asian Americans are often blamed for the

COVID-19 pandemic: “One in 4 Americans, including nearly half of Asian Americans, in recent

weeks have seen someone blame Asian people for the coronavirus epidemic, a new USA

TODAY/Ipsos Poll finds” (Page and Elbeshbishi 2021). This survey was conducted nationwide

following a mass shooting in Georgia that resulted in the death of eight people, including six

women of Asian descent (Page and Elbeshbishi 2021). A separate academic study researched

“the effect of then-President Donald Trump labeling the pandemic the ‘Chinese virus’ during its

early weeks” (Page and Elbeshbishi 2021). The study found that, “When he first used the hashtag

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#chinesevirus on Twitter in March 2020, the number of people using it exploded, and they were

much more likely to use explicitly anti-Asian hashtags than those who used #covid19 in tweets”

(Page and Elbeshbishi 2021). The pandemic has brought “bias against Asian Americans” to the

forefront, as it “has long existed but not always been recognized” (Page and Elbeshbishi 2021).

Also similar to the Indian experience during the British Empire, the experience of Asian

Americans has continuously been decentered, especially by white males. One source in a USA

Today article, “Bobby Colvin, 74, a mango grower from Pahokee, Florida, who is white, accuses

the news media of hyping reports of attacks on Asian Americans. ‘I haven’t seen it,’ he said. ‘I

don’t believe it at all” (Page and Elbeshbishi 2021). This neglect, this silencing and decentering

of the Asian American perspective, again, perpetuates a damaging discourse, that was once

enforced by the British government against Indians, which continuously decenters a minority

population, thus justifying the treatment of these communities as less than human.

IV. Socio-politics: Government Leaders and Disease

During both disease outbreaks, significant public political figures contracted the

respective virus, as two members of England’s Royal family contracted typhoid fever and

President Trump contracted COVID-19. With respect to Victorian England, one member of the

royal family — Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband — died from typhoid fever in 1861

(Steere-Williams 11). Ten years later, “their son and heir to the throne, Prince Albert Edward,”

endured a near-death experience after he contracted typhoid as well (Steere-Williams 11). Both

the death of Prince Albert and the near-death experience of Prince Albert Edward were met with

an outpouring of nationalism.

The Times reported on Prince Albert’s death in 1861, stating that “the sad event…had

filled the whole nation with sincere mourning” and that “the nation grieved for the loss of one

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whose life was valuable, not only within the environment of the Royal family, but to the whole

of a busy and diversified community. In all legitimate ways, in all action from which he was not

debarred by his high position, he mingled with the practical life of his adopted country” (“The

Late Prince Consort”). Additionally, the article emphasized that “all thoughtful people must at

this season feel more especially how unstable was human life” (“The Late Prince Consort”). The

article declared that “the nation is now in mourning” of the loss of Prince Albert (“The Late

Prince Consort”).

This was not an isolated incident of an outpouring of nationalism in response to typhoid

fever’s impact on the Royal family (Figure 4). On February 27, 1872, Queen Victoria declared “a

National Thanksgiving — to celebrate the recovery of her son after his prolonged bout with

typhoid fever” (Steere-Williams 30). In her diary, “Queen Victoria described walking into the

dimly lit sickroom only to hear a painful, audible wheeze. She saw her son ‘lying rather flat on

his back, breathing very rapidly and loudly.’ ‘It reminded me so vividly and sadly,’ she lamented

‘of my dearest Albert’s illness’” (Steere-Williams 33). Described as “one of the most grandiose

public spectacles of the nineteenth century,” the National Thanksgiving was an “outpouring of

British nationalism” that celebrated the “restored health” of Prince Albert Edward: “It was a

promise of the future of the monarchy, no doubt, but also spoke to the health of a nation. The

public spectacle, in other words, was not only a physical and spatial coming together but also a

sentimental cultural gathering” (Steere-Williams 30). This public outpouring of nationalism was

a result of the “ever-expanding press [which] elevated the popular discourse on typhoid well

outside the immediate realm where the disease was principally discussed: in medical societies,

journals, lecture courses, and within the confines of institutions such as fever hospitals” (Steere-

Williams 31). Newspapers broke the barrier that separated public health officials from the

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common people, as they allowed a different perspective of disease to spread — they amplified

voices and facilitated a conversation among common people about disease and nationalism. For

example, numerous newspaper articles were released in The Times that described the festivities

of the National Thanksgiving.

Figure 4: Nicholas Chevalier ‘Thanksgiving Day’: The Procession of St Paul’s Cathedral, 27 February 1972, for the Thanksgiving for the Recovery of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (1841-1901), later Edward VII Painted in 1873 Two specific articles from The Times detail the National Thanksgiving, as one was

written the day of the event on February 27, 1872, and the other was written the day after on

February 28. The Times discusses the Prince’s feat of overcoming typhoid fever by using the

pronoun “we” rather than “he,” suggesting that his sickness and recovery from typhoid fever

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serve as “a powerful example of how a private sickbed became popularized and commodified”

(Steere-Williams 31). The day of the National Thanksgiving celebration, The Times states that,

“while we congratulate ourselves we cannot help a fear lest our pleasure may be a little selfish”

(“The National Thanksgiving” February 27, 1872). The Times indicates that “we,” or England,

are worthy of celebration because Prince Albert Edward recovered. However, the people are

scared they “are requiring too much from a convalescent not yet returned to his full strength”

(“The National Thanksgiving” February 27, 1872).

The Times continues to describe how the metropolis setup the streets for the festivities.

The night before, “decorators were hard at work, and at half-past 3 there was a crowd of people

looking at the workmen busy upon the great Corporation arch” (“The National Thanksgiving”

February 27, 1872). The next day, The Times describes the occasion as “a great holyday for the

people of this metropolis”: “Striking and grand as were many of the scenes in the great

demonstration of yesterday, no one who did not accompany the Royal procession from the time

it left Buckingham Palace till its return can have an adequate idea of what the National

Thanksgiving was as a whole” (“The National Thanksgiving” February 28, 1872). The Times

emphasizes that everyone attended the event, regardless of class: “The people were, indeed, there

by their thousands, in all their classes and degrees, from the gentleman come down from his club

to see what was to be seen, to the artisan taking his stroll after his day’s work. Roughs and

thieves may also have been at work; but the crowd was quiet and orderly, and streamed up and

down the street without clamour of mishap” (“The National Thanksgiving” February 27, 1872).

These articles do not distinguish among the people based on their race or class. Rather, the only

difference they focus on is a binary between the common people and the Royal family. The

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result of Prince Albert Edward’s illness and recovery resulted in “typhoid [gaining] a greater

degree of public visibility as a result of the royal sickness” (Steere-Williams 32).

The response to disease recovery in Victorian England differed greatly from recovery

during the COVID-19 pandemic in that the National Thanksgiving in Victorian England brought

people together for a celebration, regardless of class or other social distinctions. On the other

hand, political events during the COVID-19 have driven Americans apart. Physically speaking,

U.S. citizens have been mandated by federal government officials to remain six feet apart,

socially distance from each other, and wear masks. Masks have been controversial, and not

everyone wears them. For example, the state of Florida has refused to implement a mask

mandate throughout the entire COVID-19 pandemic despite having some of the highest COVID-

19 positivity rates in the country. COVID-19 has also divided the country politically, as

evidenced by the tumultuous 2020 presidential election. One specific example of this political

division is the insurrection of the Capitol building on January 6, 2021. In an effort to prevent

Congress from confirming President Joseph R. Biden’s win, former President Trump gave a

“defiant speech claiming the election had been stolen from him” (Dozier and Bergengruen

2021). While “seething with anger, and mostly unmasked,” Trump supporters proceeded to

storm and breach the Capitol building: “Tens of thousands of supporters braved bone-

chilling temperatures to hear him speak at the Ellipse below the White House, then many

marched to Capitol Hill and up the steps, pushing their way past Capitol Police, as some

of the lawmakers’ office buildings were evacuated” (Dozier and Bergengruen 2021). In

summation, COVID-19 has caused much division while typhoid fever brought about a sense of

unification in Victorian England. However, both the unified masses in Victorian England and the

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fractured citizens of the United States tend to disregard the lack of cohesion that brought about

such tension initially.

This divide between political figureheads and the common people, specifically regarding

both the medical and national treatment they received, has also been drawn in the press today,

specifically when President Trump was diagnosed with COVID-19 on October 2, 2020.

President Trump was given medical treatments that were not made available to the public:

“President Trump’s physicians are giving him several different treatments – including

investigational drugs – in the hope of relieving his Covid-19 symptoms and possibly shorten his

course of illness” (Howard 2020). While President Trump “enthusiastically endorsed [this] new

antibody cocktail, saying it had been a ‘cure’ for his covid-19,” the drug — Regeneron — was in

“extremely short supply” (Dawsey and McGinley 2020). This scenario was said to be “the tale of

the U.S. health-care system, which tends to cater to the well-insured and well-connected”

(Dawsey and McGinley 2020). This was also the case during the Victorian period, as

the aforementioned Marylebone Milk Crisis drew national attention since it “struck the houses of

England’s elite doctors, no doubt [contributing] to the popularization of the outbreak and the

heightened anxiety over milk” (Steere-Williams 130). Additionally, only when a member of the

Royal family had a near-death experience did “typhoid [gain] a greater degree of public visibility

as a result of the royal sickness” (Steere-Williams 32).

President Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis was also met with a wave of nationalism in

addition to xenophobia. During his first public appearance following his diagnosis, President

Trump “quickly took off his mask when he appeared on the [White House] balcony shortly

before 2 p.m. as the crowd of several hundred cheered and chanted ‘USA! USA!’” (Shapiro and

Stoddart 2020). After spending numerous days in the hospital receiving exclusive medical

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treatments not available to the public, President Trump said the “China virus” will “disappear”

(Shapiro and Stoddart 2020). President Trump’s actions and rhetoric had deadly consequences,

as it resulted in the significant, aforementioned spike in hate crimes against the Asian American

community and a wave of people refusing to abide by CDC guidelines, as the attendees of

President Trumps speech “were not socially distanced” and not everyone was wearing a mask

(Shapiro and Stoddart 2020). President Trump has demonstrated his tacit approval of this

disregard for CDC guidelines through his own actions, as he frequently refused to wear a mask

and failed to make the public “aware of any negative COVID-19 test taken” prior to making his

first public appearance since his initial COVID-19 diagnosis (Shapiro and Stoddart 2020). This

approval of disregarding CDC guidelines and this xenophobia fueled a nationalistic mentality

among Americans, as President Trump continued to blame others outside of the United States for

COVID-19 and failed to acknowledge its lethal nature.

Another trend from the Victorian period still seen in today’s press is the facilitating of the

discourse of disease in the public realm outside of the medical field during the COVID-19

pandemic. There have been countless efforts made by Anthony Fauci, the chief medical adviser

to the President, to speak directly to everyday people in order to both inform and guide the public

on how to navigate living through a global pandemic. Fauci has made efforts to communicate

with both adults and children. On December 19, 2020, Fauci appeared on an hour-long special

with members of the Sesame Street cast, “The ABC's of Covid 19: A CNN/Sesame Street Town

Hall for Families,” to discuss how to celebrate the holidays (Murray 2020). Fauci discussed

making new traditions this year, as he and the Sesame Street characters explained the concept of

social distancing and its importance (Murray 2020). Fauci continued to discuss vaccinations in

an effort to reassure children that they are safe: “[Fauci] assured them the shot is a ‘pinch’ but

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the pinch really lasts only seconds” (Murray 2020). Finally, Fauci told children that it was safe

for Santa Claus to come into their home: “I measured his level of immunity, and he is good to

go…He can come down the chimney, he can leave the presents, he can leave and you have

nothing to worry about” (Murray 2020). By explaining these complex medical concepts in a

manner that not just adults but children can understand, Fauci expands this concept of facilitating

a conversation of disease in the public realm, outside of the medical community.

This trend, which began in Victorian England, demonstrates the democratization of

medical knowledge, as an increased amount of people are able to access information and discuss

possible consequences and solutions. However, this democratization of medical knowledge,

which began in the Victorian period with the release of medical reports to the public, has

consistently been accompanied by intoxicating nationalism both in Victorian England and today

that has resulted in public denial about the factors that cause and exacerbate the conditions. The

aforementioned environmental conditions of improper ventilation, inability to access clean water,

and the expansion of food deserts, while occasionally acknowledged in the media, have remained

largely neglected in the context of the larger political agenda. Many factions of society have been

oppressed and blamed for the spread of disease, resulting in dangerous xenophobic conditions.

Heads of state both in Victorian England and today are more focused on shifting blame to these

factions rather than addressing the conditions that exacerbated the disease, thus leading these

heads of state to contract the respective virus of their time.

V. Intersectionality, Surveillance, and Disease Outbreak

Color blinding has been a large issue during the COVID-19 pandemic, as many

politicians, celebrities, and others in a position of wealth and power have continuously claimed

that “we are all in this together” when we are really not (Bowleg 2020). The entire concept of

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“intersectionality troubles the notion of a collective ‘we’ and ‘all’ with the harsh and

inconvenient truth that when social injustice and inequality are rife, as they were long before

COVID-19, there are only what intersectionality scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw calls ‘specific and

particular concerns’” (Bowleg 2020). It is worth noting here that, based on my research, there is

a lack of scholarship discussing intersectionality and how it pertains to the typhoid fever

outbreak in Victorian England. While it can be traced through newspaper clippings, such as the

ones provided in this analysis from The Times, the concept of intersectionality did not exist

during the Victorian period, and there has been noticeably minimal effort in scholarship to trace

intersectionality back to the time period, specifically as it pertained to the typhoid fever outbreak.

In order to compensate for this void in my research, I will be drawing comparisons from

contemporary sources and placing them in conversation with newspaper clippings from The

Times during the Victorian period.

As previously discussed, it is painfully ironic that the voices of those who need to be

heard the most are often stifled by their poor living conditions, which are in turn exacerbated by

the fact that their voices are not heard. For example, the aforementioned environmental

conditions endured by certain portions of both the Victorians and current population of the

United States — improper ventilation systems, inability to access clean drinking water, and food

insecurity — exacerbated disease spread. We see these environmental factors intersect with both

class and politics. One example of such intersection, as mentioned earlier, was the fact that a

doctor from the St. Marylebone parish of London drew national attention to the contaminated

milk supply when it began to “[strike] the houses of England’s elite doctors” (Steere-Williams

130). Another example is the fact that both President Trump and the Royal family had access to

the top, leading doctors of the nation at their respective times. President Trump received

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treatment not available to the public when he was diagnosed with COVID-19. Prince Albert

Edward was seen by the nation’s leading doctors and was given a parade for his recovery from

typhoid fever. These public political figures also did not face dangerous work. For example,

President Trump was not a frontline worker during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic: “Many

of the riskiest and most stressful frontline jobs now deemed essential offer low pay and are

occupied by people at the most marginalized intersections: racial/ethnic minorities, women, and

undocumented workers. These intersections contrast starkly with those of the predominantly

White, middle-class, and rich people who hire, legislate, and direct the conditions under which

the ‘essential’—or expendable, depending on your point of view—work and, in the COVID-19

era, live or die” (Bowleg 2020).

While both public political figureheads garnered national attention for their diagnosis,

treatment, and recovery from their respective diseases, other government officials were

implementing disease surveillance systems. John Simon’s previously mentioned report, Filth-

Diseases and Their Prevention, “was characteristic of the rhetorical style and political agenda

adopted at the Medical Department” (Steere-Williams 10). Simon used his annual reports, such

as this, as “political weapons:” “the bulk of each report, however, was made up of appendices,

which contained handpicked epidemiological reports by the team’s inspectorate” (Steere-

Williams 10). Simon sought to utilize these reports to further a “political agenda” focused on

overcoming “preventable deaths” through “central surveillance,” thus making “typhoid a model

cause of the public health movement in late Victorian Britain” (Steere-Williams 10-11). These

reports had “more subtle (but often just as impactful) forms of persuasion” toward the general

population (Steere-Williams 12). In reality, “the practices of disease surveillance rarely follow

the rationalized vision of state medicine,” in that the reports rather served the purpose of giving

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the government a reason to blame certain intersectional groups for disease outbreak (Steere-

Williams 272).

For example, Simon’s report indicated filth as a main cause of typhoid outbreak, thus

“typhoid stood as a litmus test for the health of a particular area” (Steere-Williams 1). However,

within the report, as was the case with others, “some problems of health and the environment are

feared and framed as public health problems of immediate concern, while other are neglected,

downplayed, or…romanticized by the public, policymakers, and the media” (Steere-Williams 8).

In other words, the aforementioned environmental factors — improper ventilation, the ability to

access clean drinking water, and areas that are food deserts — were both exacerbated by the

disease and exacerbated the spread of disease. Rather than funneling the financial means to these

areas to help suppress these environmental disasters, government officials filed reports, like

Simon’s Filth-Diseases and Their Prevention, to further a political agenda, one that blamed

others of a lower economic class and a differing race for the spread of disease. The British found

a way to blame those of a lower social class domestically through filthy, environmental factors.

Then, the British found a way to blame those who they considered to be of a lower social class

internationally, those who were inferior to British soldiers stationed in India. Therefore, the

creation of reports like Filth-Diseases and Their Prevention by government officials contributed

to the implementation of a disease surveillance system while simultaneously shifting the blame

to the most vulnerable populations.

Harmful rhetoric and government reports aimed at disease surveillance are still

disseminated to the public today. The CDC has a section on their website titled “Surveillance and

Data Analytics,” where they keep track of current COVID-19 cases, hospitalization rates, and

mortality reporting to name a few. On their website, the CDC clearly states that they are

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practicing disease surveillance of the U.S. population: “For surveillance of COVID-19 and its

cause, SARS-CoV-2, in the United States, CDC is using multiple surveillance systems run in

collaboration with state, local and territorial health departments, public health, commercial and

clinical laboratories, vital statistics offices, health care providers, emergency departments and

academic partners to monitor COVID-19 disease in the United States” (CDC). Some have found

the collection and publication of this data by the government to be comforting in that it keeps the

public informed, but others have raised privacy concerns. In conjunction with the collection of

this data, former President Trump was writing Tweets and giving press conferences, in which he

called COVID-19 the “Chinese virus,” indicating that the Chinese population was responsible for

the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S. Again, a pattern emerges of government officials utilizing

and disseminating harmful rhetoric in conjunction with the collection of surveillance data and its

release to the public with the aim of furthering a political agenda of deflecting blame from

themselves and placing that blame on others, such as Asian Americans, for disease outbreak.

As both governments continued their respective attempts at implementing national

disease surveillance systems, the media has worked as a system of checks and balances. Media,

specifically journalism, rectifies this moral wrong perpetuated by national governments of

deflecting blame by highlighting the voices of those who are suppressed by such actions.

Information may be disseminated from a top-down approach, but newspapers and other forms of

journalistic media provide an alternative outlet for those who would otherwise not have the

opportunity to voice their opinions. However, as previously mentioned, newspapers are also

limited in that one must be literate in order to participate. Any one person who lacks the

education and the means to access the internet today is left out of the conversation.

Understanding this positionality in the media is a new concept, and it is merely the first step that

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should be taken to preventing the media from turning into “another hollow platitude of solidarity

designed to placate the privileged and temporarily uncomfortable and inconvenienced” (Bowleg

2020).

VI. Conclusion

In conclusion, the decline of transparency in journalism over the past century has

facilitated the stagnation of progress toward ending structural oppression. One could argue that

as less and less of a source’s original words were being printed in newspapers, the internet and

social media grew in presence, thus allowing the everyday person ample opportunity to speak.

However, we run into the issue regarding positionality as we did before. Only those who are

literate and have access to such resources are capable of having a vocal presence in society. This

serves as yet another example of the stagnation of progress in ending structural oppression, as

regardless of medium — whether it is physical print or posting online — the same group of

uneducated citizens are being silenced. As evidenced in this analysis, disease brings such

structural inequities to the forefront, as it exacerbates the pre-existing conditions of poor

environmental conditions, racism, political agendas, and state surveillance systems. This analysis

is intended to serve as a piece of history of this tumultuous time in which to be a student amid a

global pandemic, but it is also imperative to realize the impact the media and the words we speak

have on the structures we live within. This trend of the media losing objectivity is dangerous and

has set society on a path of stagnation with a risk of deterioration, as evidenced by such divisive

events ranging from the spike in hate crimes against Asian Americans to an insurrection at the

Capitol building. This is a turning point, a crossroad. The best, most logical place to start gaining

both increased objectivity and a wider range of perspectives would be to expand educational

programs. Reaching neglected audiences by increasing literacy and English programs in the

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United States would help solve the problem of not enough people having the ability to speak on

their own behalf.

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