We do a bit of Research into handicapped travel issues and provide some solutions. Mobility, Hearing, Sight, Mental issues included. so far our episodes have included some information on Ataxia, Cerebral Palsy, Deafness, Dancing Sickness, Gulf War Syndrome, Long Covid and Wheelchairs. We are both Disability Advocates and realize there are too many diseases and conditions to cover and try to discuss the most common problems disabled people face and spread some awareness of disabled issues non-disabled people are unaware of.
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“Bubonic plague” is the kind of phrase that can spike your heart rate before you even finish the headline. Kevin and Palmi, two disability advocates who pay close attention to how health news lands in real life, break down a recent plague scare that spread across U.S. reporting after a death connected to a Russian institute was framed as a possible outbreak.
We walk through what was actually known, what was merely suspected, and how conflicting official statements can turn uncertainty into panic. Along the way, we clarify the basics of bubonic plague, pneumonic plague, and septicemic plague, and we compare them with pneumonia so the terms don’t get mashed into one scary blob. We also talk about why public health responses like quarantine and monitoring can be necessary and still be misunderstood when the details are muddy.
Then we bring it back to what matters most to us: disability and access. When emergency alerts are delayed, contradictory, or not provided in accessible formats, disabled people, especially those with chronic illness, respiratory conditions, or immunocompromised status, can lose critical time and peace of mind. Our biggest takeaway is straightforward: don’t panic, verify. Check for confirmation, look for multiple credible sources, and keep an eye on what agencies like the WHO are actually saying.
If this helped you think more clearly about outbreak news and accessibility, subscribe, share the show with a friend, and leave a review. What’s your personal rule for deciding whether a health headline is trustworthy?
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Welcome to our podcast, When Life Gives You Lovements. I'm Kevin.
Kevin
And I'm Palmi. We consider ourselves disability advocates and intend to highlight some disability issues and things we find interesting that we frequently encounter when we're out and about. Also, some history on disability that we find interesting. This year we're going to include more of the interviews of the people that the disability affects. We hope you enjoy
Another day in rooms not built for me. The sidewalk flows at a different speed. Feels like I'm watching my own movie through a hazy sunlit filter. All the little signs are invisible lines that only make sense in my own time. There's a quiet strength in adaptation, a soft hum of my own creation. Yeah, soft hum of my own creation.
And today we're gonna talk about the Pubonic Plague. And the reason we're talking about the Pubonic Plague is it was in the news recently here in the US.
Kevin
Well, actually in Russia.
palmi
Yeah, it was uh fake news, and we'll kind of go through that. How that story got misreported.
Kevin
So there was an incident in Russia, and it was reported here in the United States as a possible bubonic plague um incident.
palmi
And they just ran with their for their short at the Bonic Plague Institute. She had to die of bubonic plague, right?
Kevin
Well, one and two doesn't make three, but yes, that's what was reported.
palmi
That's correct. In this case, one plus one did not equal two. She died of bubonic influenza. I'm sorry.
Kevin
You're gonna start the thing all over again.
palmi
Let me uh make sure I'm reading this correctly. Okay, her name? Now I know I'm gonna put your name because I've not already got big Russian names, but Daria Chipolova. And she died on October 7th after developing severe pneumonia.
Kevin
So bubonic plague had no connection to it other than the fact that that's where she worked.
palmi
Well, actually, it was kind of uh in the media's defense. I'll say it's used to according to a contracted pneumonic plague.
Kevin
After a broken test tube, is it? Yeah. But it was not verified.
palmi
Uh but basically the it's the teacher shut down. They took nearly 200 workers there, quarantine them all, and placed them all under medical observation.
Kevin
And what was confusing was there was conflicting official reports, right?
palmi
Because it's on in general, we don't hear a lot of news. We came way out of Russia into the US.
Kevin
Right. So they were only getting bits and bobs of what was happening.
unknown
Yeah.
Kevin
And somebody ran with the wrong bits and bobs.
palmi
Basically, because you know it's like slow in the media's eyes.
Kevin
They were just they were paying playing the typical telephone uh game.
palmi
It's COVID all over again. Yeah, it's gonna be a worldwide pandemic.
Kevin
Yeah.
palmi
There wasn't anything like that.
Kevin
So um some uh rec uh regional offices um initially referred to the plague. Later statements ref uh described um pneumonia of unknown region uh origin. Um so let's talk about what is pneumonia versus the bubonic plague.
Well, first off, just in case people don't recognize a name from history, it was also known as a bite.
Kevin
I'm sure everybody kind of recognizes that.
palmi
Sometimes it worked out like a quarter of the population of Europe. Yeah, which is where our ancestors come from. Yeah. Which is why we hear well, yeah.
Kevin
And a lot of it was caused by sanitary conditions, um, anti-I mean non-sanitary conditions, and it was carried by the rats, right? Yeah, which kind of fleas from the rats.
palmi
Because uh if you call Russia a ukraine war, and the best description I heard from this came from a TV show you watch. It's like World War One with Star Horses happening. So it's like in the military mud you get into conflicting uh scenarios happening once here in the trench. There hasn't been trench warfare since World War I, but here you are defending its drones, defending all these events weapons that crazy stone at you. Okay, to find out, or they found out early on that the Russia weapons were supposed to be as good as the data weapons that Ukraine was using weren't that that's really not they're just basically throwing everything at them that they have.
Kevin
Even in the old stockpiles and stuff, yeah.
unknown
Yeah.
palmi
Uh but uh like I said in their defense, it was the stretches are basically filled with racks for them and the sort of things you think about, you think about I could be carrying the plague well, but this is a lab, so we're talking lab Tory. Yeah, what we didn't know it was in Siberia when they first came up. We just found out they had a boutonic plague institute, and somebody had died at the plague. And so, of course, all the worst things that could possibly be are going through our minds. It's COVID! We're all gonna die.
unknown
Yeah.
Kevin
Okay, let's talk about um pneumonia versus the um bubonic
plague. So uh there's three forms bubonic stemic uh stem what is that spemic and nip and pneumonia. And pneumonia. The bubonic plague has swollen no lymph nodes historically caused by the uh caused by the Black Death. Um the nomadic plague is lung infections, spreads person to person via respiratorial droplets, rapidly fatal without treatment. Modern antibiotics are effective if administered um early. So I wonder why they they didn't why she died of it. Apparently they didn't identify it quick enough and she didn't get antibiotics.
palmi
Well, I wouldn't imagine that if just one person gets sick and has signs of pneumonia, it wouldn't treat it like new pneumonia.
Kevin
So public health uh response and global responses uh are quarantine measures are implied and uh implemented at hospitals and research centers. HOA requests verification and uh additional inform data. Russia reported no confirmed plague cases in the regional region and negative tests for high threats pathogens.
palmi
Not a joy dear, you have the wrong order in the session. WHO all failed.
Kevin
Oh, I'm sorry, WHO did I say the wrong US uh officials requested transport uh um transparency. Russia insisted the situation was under control.
palmi
Still need for transparency, it's all under control.
Kevin
World Health uh organization insisted the risk is um moderate to low locally and low nationally and very low regionally.
Why this matters for disability communities? Um the emergency communication gaps, uh conflicting reports highlight how disabled individuals, especially those relying on accessibility formats, may struggle to get accuracy and time in a timely information situation.
palmi
Okay, also it only makes sense.
Kevin
If you're on the higher risk and you're disabled, you're gonna be susceptible to any of this stuff. Just like when we had COVID, people that were disabled and had lower higher risk um lung disorders, that type of thing, were at higher risk of getting that.
palmi
Also, I'm gonna just categorically make a political statement. If you are in a uh convist country, the news doesn't always flow if it doesn't fit their narrative. So there's a lot of cover-ups. There could be a lot of sympathetic countries or even other Congress countries that have they're gonna, you know, I mean they're not subject to the runaway free information cycles we have here with US.
Kevin
Like we have free information available. Uh emergency communication gaps.
palmi
Um could not always accurate information, but it is free.
Kevin
Conflicting reports highlights how disabled individuals, especially those relying on uh accessible formats, may struggle to get accurate and timely information. Um, the medical vulnerability, people with chronic illness, respiratorial conditions, or uh um autocompromised statuses may face higher risk during outbreaks or miscommunication-driven panic.
palmi
Um access is the big factor I would think for the disabled community. For example, in COVID, I could think of for breaking issues. They basically were not a list of preexisting conditions that he had here higher as the normal. And I had all of them. Right, and all I heard about it was it really affects yes, like bad flu, you know, yeah. Well, heart is flood out of corpuses, prompt breathing, etc. etc. So yeah, that kind of took a bit of panic by and by uh actions at the time.
Kevin
Access barriers, quarantine zones, and disrupted service may disproportionately affect disabled people who rely on caregivers, transportational assistance, and medical devices. Historical content, disabled committees, communities awful experience, negative neglect in emergency planning. This incidence underscores the need for exclusive protocols, biose, securities and transparency, and disabled rights. Russia's history of secrecy around biological research raises concerns about global accountability. Disability advocates is uh it stress transparency reporting ensures equitable protection.
palmi
Emergency planning, inclusive emergency planning must consider communication, accessibility, mobility needs in medical dependency.
Kevin
International cooperation is essential to prevent harm to my um marginal groups. He
takeaways for listeners, what you have to takeaway is uh you can't always rely on fake news, don't panic, try to Well, you have to make sure it's confirmed, it's a confirmed plague outbreak. So keep uh re-con reconfirming that it's an actual real it's actual really happening, not just go with the first jerk and strength stink that you hear. Confirm and you know, confirm and deny I mean confirm and then confirm again. What's happening is in a lot of these cases is the old time news sources where they had to confirm their sources multiple times, that's not happening anymore. So you as a consumer of news have to go back and actually confirm the information that you're um getting from them. That's my advice. Disabled individuals must be centered in emergency preparedness discussions. The WHO and the global health agencies continue monitoring and no evidence of ongoing transmission.
palmi
Um this just happened. If you remember in last episode, I said we can't record too far in advance, even though we're getting early to move it, it would be nice to have several episodes preloaded and ready to go. But when something like this happens, we want to be able to report on it. Yeah, we can't really talk about things that are gonna happen in the future because none of us really knew what's gonna happen in the future.
Kevin
Right, but this was lucky enough that we're still in our podcast zone within the time period that we chose to still put a podcast out. So that's why we chose to talk about this this um blubonic plague incident that was popular last week.
And uh one other thing that I promised to tell you this time, this episode was when the last episode would be. Our last episode will be the next one, which will we'll be talking about cataracts. But I believe that will air on November 5th. That will be it for the season. What we usually do is on the podcast days when episodes normally go out, we take a look back at last year and see what episodes were really popular and rerun them or downloaded more often. And those are the episodes that we'll play while we're not recording podcasts.
Kevin
On our offs on the off season.
palmi
Yeah, basically those we can put in spin years our podcast uh host will allow.
Kevin
And then we start fresh the next year with new information. Sometimes we bring back stuff that's happened while we're out, and sometimes we change our formats. Um, it might be a new format next year. Um, it all determines what's happening in our life. And since we have a big change, we have a big change that's coming up, so maybe there's something different that we want to talk about.
palmi
Oh, we almost always change our introduction and our uh the music that covered least the introduction.
Kevin
Yeah.
palmi
I it seems like we just landed on the one we got, so a big little changes the music. Yeah, maybe. We'll have to see.
Kevin
Depends how ambitious Kevin is. Alright. Well, for now, what do you do, Kev?
palmi
Well, when life gets you loved and see make a lemon game.
