‘It was gone’: 92-year-old Lawrence woman recalls how a vaccine mandate helped stop a smallpox outbreak, calls for mandatory COVID shots

photo by: Mike Yoder

When 92-year-old Carol Schwarting was young, a government vaccine mandate helped get rid of a smallpox outbreak in her community.

When Carol Schwarting was a child, her community suffered a smallpox outbreak that led to the death of a 4-year-old child her family knew.

In light of the virus’ spread, people needed to quarantine and stay away from others, Schwarting recently told the Journal-World. That meant Schwarting, who is now 92 and a resident at Monterey Village Senior Living in Lawrence, wouldn’t be able to go to the swimming pool all summer, she said.

Schwarting said she grew up in New Jersey, but doesn’t remember exactly when the outbreak happened other than that it was in the 1930s before she was 10 or 11 years old.

“The swimming pool was closed, and that was an important and a fun part of your life when you were under 10 years old,” Schwarting said. “It was disappointing.”

But the outbreak of the smallpox virus in her community wouldn’t last long, and the reason was that the government mandated people to get a vaccine to ward off the virus, she said. Shortly after, smallpox cases were gone, and life returned to normal.

Schwarting said she later learned the virus was an issue in the U.S. for many years after, but her community didn’t suffer any more issues.

“We all got the vaccination and the world went back to normal,” Schwarting said. “We were quarantined for a few months and that was it.

“It was gone,” she added.

It’s a story Schwarting thinks is important to share, because she said it could provide a valuable lesson at a time when the coronavirus pandemic has raged on for about 18 months, leading to more than 630,000 deaths in the U.S., according to the CDC.

While Schwarting is vaccinated against COVID-19, she said she knows many others are not and are hesitant to get the shot. That compelled her to speak up and write a letter to Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly asking for a law to be passed that mandates vaccines for the overall public health.

“If such a law were passed now and everyone was vaccinated, we could possibly end the virus,” Schwarting wrote in the letter. “People in government seem to want people to do as they wish.”

She then quoted the famous “A Christmas Carol” protagonist Ebenezer Scrooge, who said, before he had a change of heart at the end of the story, “If they would rather die, they had better do it and decrease the surplus population.”

Schwarting then asks, “Is that what we want?”

Highlighting her earlier experience with vaccines and quarantines, Schwarting told the Journal-World she believes mandating vaccinations for COVID-19 would end a public health crisis that has affected much of everyday life — much like smallpox vaccines ended the threat from that disease.

Smallpox, which existed for thousands of years, was a contagious disease that caused fever and severe skin rash, with about 30% of cases leading to death, according to the CDC. Additionally, those who survived were left with permanent scarring on their bodies from the rashes.

Vaccines against smallpox date back to 1799, but many were hesitant to take them — much like how many people today hesitate to get the COVID-19 vaccines, one of which recently earned full FDA approval. Schwarting said it took the passage of a vaccine mandate for her community to get enough people vaccinated against smallpox to overcome the spread.

“It was a law that we got vaccinated, and so we did,” she said. “Now, there’s no law and people can do what they want.”

Some may question whether vaccines can be mandated, but the smallpox vaccine set a precedent there too.

In 1905, the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Jacobson v. Massachusetts allowed states to mandate vaccinations for large populations, which was in response to an order in Cambridge, Mass., forcing vaccinations to end a smallpox epidemic that began in 1901, according to the New England Journal of Medicine.

Outbreaks of the virus would continue for years, but vaccinations eventually brought it to an end. The last outbreak of the virus in the U.S. was in 1949, according to the CDC. Later, a global vaccination campaign eventually led to the smallpox virus disappearing altogether, and the World Health Organization declared the disease eradicated in 1980.

Now, smallpox vaccines aren’t recommended to the public because they are no longer needed, according to the CDC. However, the U.S. government has a stockpile of vaccines for the virus if it ever makes a comeback.

In regards to COVID-19, some vaccine requirements have already begun at businesses and organizations, including universities. Recently, a Indiana University student group challenged the university’s mandate for students to be vaccinated, but Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett rejected the challenge.

That outcome might pave the way for more universities and other organizations to mandate vaccines as well. Schwarting said she hopes that’s what happens, since many don’t seem to be willing to get a vaccine on their own to bring the pandemic to an end.

“The trouble is it’s not just them, but they can spread it around to everybody else,” she said. “It’s not going to stop; it’s going to keep going. You’ve got to stop it.”

Schwarting’s letter to Gov. Laura Kelly

Aug. 20, 2021

Dear Gov. Kelly,

I was born in 1929 and am 92-years-old. In the 1930s, there was an epidemic of smallpox in which people were dying. We knew a 4-year-old boy that died of it. The government soon passed a law that everyone had to get vaccinated. In a few months, there was no more smallpox.

If such a law were passed now and everyone was vaccinated, we could possibly end the virus. People in government seem to want people to do as they wish. Ebenezer Scrooge said, before he reformed, “If they would rather die … they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

Is that what we want?

Carol Schwarting


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