Travel Warning

This is a travel warning to those coming to northern Vietnam. Beginning in early March, an outbreak of cholera has stirred up in over 10 provinces and in the capital of Hanoi. The culprit is unhygienic food sources primarily street carts. 

This is a pretty damning mark on our evolution as a developing economy. The above notice, courtesy of the New York Times' Science section, was issued during an epidemic circa 1830 in New York. Looks like Vietnam still has a ways to go before rising above the squalor conditions of 19th century New Amsterdam. 

Let's just hope that the people's committee doesn't revert to the attitudes prevalent in those times. As reported by The Times, the public's temperament was that, "those sickened must be cured or die off, & being chiefly of the very scum of the city, the quicker [their] dispatch the sooner the malady will cease." Harsh treatment, no?