Replies

Epidemic quarantines are not a particularly good means of control, or really, there are far easier and more effective means of control than quarantines.

As far as epidemic-like control measures, there is only one international control means that applies to biological, chemical and nuclear scenarios. It was invoked by the Soviet Union a few times, and once in Italy. It amounts to building a fence around the area, optionally outprocessing everyone within, and abandoning the place.

The Italian incident, the “Seveso disaster”, is best known.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seveso_disaster

I’m not sure if the Soviets activated it after Chernobyl, as it was such a grand disaster that there was no need for international notification.

The problem with using a national epidemic as a means of control is that quarantines are under the control of doctors, who while they instantly have authority over the police and even military personnel, are focused on the disease, not the control measures. This is the case even when they are acting in their most authoritarian manner.

And this tends to fly in the face of political control, so even an ordinary person can tell the difference.

Quarantines work. But in many countries a small bribe or hiring a smuggler makes them useless. In traditional Africa, those with infectious diseases like smallpox were put in a hut outside the village, and food and water left at the door. If after so many days the person was disease free, they were left out. If no one ate the food for a couple of days, they burned down the hut.

a lot of people are dying of non ebola disease because they are afraid of going to a hospital. But when we had a cholera outbreak, we were told to put all cases elsewhere. We had no cases, thankGod, but a doc from another hospital used the local gradeschool for this.

and the smallpox scare after 911 had plans drawn up for a similar use of school for giving vaccine while using other public buildings for quarantine.