NEVER GO THERE

בס"ד

Vancouver's infamous downtown east side has a spreading multi-drug resistant strain of TB. 1 in 4 people who contract this will die. It would cost the government as much as one million dollars to cure a single person with this type of TB, which could still re-occur later in life. As the bacteria which causes the ailment can hang in the air for several hours after somebody coughs or spits, I'm going to steer clear of this neighbourhood. From now on.

I understand that a healthy person must be exposed to the bacteria many many times before it can get a hold on one's lungs, & even then will probably lie dormant. However, this is small comfort when, in this day & age, anyone could at some point become temporarily immune-compromised (from chemotherapy, for example) then be attacked from within.

This is what comes of people not taking their full round of antibiotics, using antibacterial room sprays, etc.

My concern is not only for my health, but for the people who are forced to live in the downtown east side by their poverty. I encounter many people begging for money & food when I've gone down there, usually to an out-of-the-way groovealicious art gallery. I always offer to buy food or to at least give them a few coins, but if I'm going to avoid the area, I'll be doing less tzedaqah. Obviously I can write a cheque to a charity instead, but making human contact with some of these folks is a greater gift than anything else we give them. Sometimes what they are starved most for is a friendly conversation.

I am now looking for ways I can maintain the little personal contact I have with those less fortunate, to keep reaching out to my fellow humans, created b'tzelem Eloqim, & to thereby keep humanising them in my own mind & not distance myself from those in need while protecting my own health.