There WAS talk of quarantine among the population and in conservative magazines. The talk was, if this were a disease transmissible by air / droplets / casual contact, there would have been, to protect lives. And thousands of gays would have been saved. But instead the politics of the day were such that BECAUSE THE PATIENTS WERE GAY it wouldn’t be PC to do medically sane prevention. That would be “homophobic” so to prevent that horrible optic, more gays, MANY MORE GAYS, and many other victims (transfusion, wives of closeted men, injectable drug users) had to die.
It’s a stupid article. I worked in a blood lab at the time and there was serious talk about quarantining. We even “mini quarantined” the blood samples of AIDS patients and kept them away from the young college students (me included). But Reagan never mentioned it as far as I know. Sensible medical,professionals did.
The bath/sex houses weren’t even shut down.
I think this was the first time in the history of mankind where known carriers of a deadly, communicable disease, were not attempted to be kept isolated from the public.
And quite the opposite, the carriers were treated as virtual heroes and martyrs to their 'cause' of perversion. Billions of dollars raised to fight this disease (which was easily known how to prevent) and siphoned away from working on other diseases such as cancers and Alzheimer's.
Patient care providers were not allowed to know whether or not a patient they were working with was infected or not, as that would ‘violate patient privacy’. Instead, ALL patients were to be treated as if they were infected.
That part of the patient record was sealed from all nursing & ancillary staff; only the actual treating physician knew.
Lab draws for HIV testing were even coded to maintain anonymity from staff.
In cases of accidental needle-sticks, or other possible provider exposures, testing & follow up testing was done on the worker only, but the focus was to protect the “privacy” of any infected patient, unlike any other communicable disease. Isolation was out of the question, because it would “unfairly stigmatize” the patient—excuse me; the CLIENT.
It was insanity, and a major factor in my leaving patient care for a desk job.