It’s an easy political metaphor unconnected to an actual epidemic, but let’s catalogue it anyway. “The open outbreak of the contagion of insubordination in Poland, recognizable by the poisonous pustules of suspiciously white color, has unleashed deep concern about Western infection among the surrounding fraternal nations. Energetic isolation and disinfection measures are underway.”
(Nebelspalter, Zurich, 1980)
Sic Transit Pestilentia 