Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm truly Douglas. And
Speaker 1: the episode that we just put out Tuesday was of
Speaker 1: course on its bowlow where we talked about about the
Speaker 1: virus itself, about how it spreads, about how we can
Speaker 1: attempt to treat it, and how it plays into the
Speaker 1: current sort of global climate bega that global ideas and
Speaker 1: fears and paranoia regarding that particular virus. So in this episode,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about another closely related topic here,
Speaker 1: and that is quarantine, because that inevitably that's that's a
Speaker 1: lot of what we're talking about when we're talking about it, bou,
Speaker 1: because quarantine is necessary to protect those that are treating
Speaker 1: the illness. Yeah, and also is one of those things
Speaker 1: that kind of plays into the whole Hollywood sensationalized idea
Speaker 1: of what a quarantine is, whether or not you're drawing
Speaker 1: that from your from each you know, when when the
Speaker 1: government comes into like quarantine the house and because it's scary, right,
Speaker 1: people in suits and they've wrapped the house and in
Speaker 1: the in this giant plastic bubble. Yeah, or if you're
Speaker 1: even thinking about the movie Outbreak again, it's the it's
Speaker 1: the men in suits, you know, it's sort of like
Speaker 1: the storm They look like Stormtroopers, except for definitely not
Speaker 1: as you know, hard schoold. Yeah. I mean, on one hand,
Speaker 1: it's it's very much the idea that you have you
Speaker 1: have become something alien because you were infected or may
Speaker 1: have been infected, And I look like something alien now
Speaker 1: because I'm in this dehumanizing suit. Like it's a very
Speaker 1: dehumanizing level to it. And then on another level, and
Speaker 1: we were talking about this an email just the other day,
Speaker 1: there's a dramatic sense to this too. There's the old
Speaker 1: saying you don't bring a cannon on the stage unless
Speaker 1: you're gonna fire it. And I feel, essentially the cases
Speaker 1: you do not introduce quarantine into a TV show, movie, novel, book,
Speaker 1: comic book, et cetera, unless somebody is going to break quarantine.
Speaker 1: So it gives us this kind of skewed fictional idea
Speaker 1: about what quarantine is, how quarantine works, to what degree
Speaker 1: quarantine is effective or or is ineffective. I mean, we
Speaker 1: just have a very unreal vision of what it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I was also thinking about Dr Alan Jamison. He
Speaker 1: is a retired doctor who was working with Medical Teams
Speaker 1: International to treat ebola patients, and he recently returned home
Speaker 1: to Tennessee in the United States, and he quarantined himself.
Speaker 1: I think he did this not because he had any
Speaker 1: symptoms of ebola, but I think he understood that this
Speaker 1: topic right now is so supercharged and so emotionally just
Speaker 1: laden with fire works, with people getting angry. That he
Speaker 1: was like, whoa, whoa, guys, before you start, you know,
Speaker 1: congregating around my house, which works and fire I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna lay low twenty one days, just to
Speaker 1: make sure, so don't anybody get crazy. So I thought
Speaker 1: that was a smart move on his part, because he
Speaker 1: is isolating himself. His family's dropping off food on his porch.
Speaker 1: It's a great excuse to to get out of social commitments,
Speaker 1: you know. And so I'd love to go to that
Speaker 1: baby shower, but I just got back. I really am.
Speaker 1: I'm not sick, there's nothing wrong with me, but just
Speaker 1: to be on the safe side, I can't go. I'm
Speaker 1: going to quarantine myself. Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna The next
Speaker 1: time I get an evite for a baby shower. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna put that in my no reply. Sorry. In quarantine
Speaker 1: self quarantine, sorry, So why would you quarantine someone or
Speaker 1: why would a community quarantine itself? Um, Viral strains like
Speaker 1: tuberculosis might be a reason. Bioterrorism has been thrown around
Speaker 1: as well, the idea that you might use one of
Speaker 1: these viral strains in warfare and try to contain it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, and in this at this level of the scenario,
Speaker 1: it plays that exactly like it does in the movies.
Speaker 1: There's something there's something either unknown that is potentially communicable
Speaker 1: or or it is very much danger. It can something
Speaker 1: that can spread and potentially become a major outbreak. So
Speaker 1: you want to contain it. You want to keep it
Speaker 1: from jumping to new individuals. And when we talk about outbreak, epidemic, pandemic,
Speaker 1: let's give a little bit more definition to that. Um.
Speaker 1: This is actually from web MD. Uh. They say that
Speaker 1: with an outbreak, we're talking about a disease outbreak that
Speaker 1: happens when a disease occurs in greater numbers than expected
Speaker 1: in a community or region during a season. So the
Speaker 1: flu would be a good example of this. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then an epidemic. And epidemic is when an infectious disease
Speaker 1: spreads rapidly too many more people. And this may be
Speaker 1: just within the same region, it may involve several countries
Speaker 1: that it's it can it can, it can vary in
Speaker 1: size and still be an epidemic. And then finally you
Speaker 1: have the idea of the pandemic. And in a pandemic,
Speaker 1: you're dealing with a global situation. And in examples of
Speaker 1: this would be AIDS, HIV and various strains of influenza. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and just to go by to epidemic Stars is a
Speaker 1: good example that. Yeah. So I like to think of
Speaker 1: these also in terms of of Beatlemania, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: you have a very regional outbreak of enthusiasm over a
Speaker 1: particular musical act, and then it it grows and it
Speaker 1: becomes popular in other areas and it eventually reaches a
Speaker 1: point at which it's a global phenomenon. Okay, And it's
Speaker 1: the same thing with any kind and essentially it's just
Speaker 1: a this in this case is a viral idea of
Speaker 1: viral taste. Music as virus um celebrity as virus that spreads.
Speaker 1: But but of course it's based on. That idea is
Speaker 1: based on a very real model of how infectious agents
Speaker 1: spread through a species, right Beatles music spreading throughout a community.
Speaker 1: The world great, but not so much with with the
Speaker 1: virus UM. Now we could go like, I don't know
Speaker 1: for days about the history of quarantines, because it's a
Speaker 1: really rich history. Imagine every single country has has um,
Speaker 1: you know, some sort of protocol in place or history
Speaker 1: with quarantine. So we won't go way deep in there,
Speaker 1: but just to give everybody an idea of the practice
Speaker 1: of quarantining in earnest This began in the fourteenth century
Speaker 1: and according to the Centers for Disease Control, what was
Speaker 1: happening is that there was this effort to protect coastal
Speaker 1: cities from plague epidemics. So ships arriving in Venice, which
Speaker 1: would have been the seat of power at that time,
Speaker 1: from infected ports, were required to sit at anchor for
Speaker 1: forty days before landing. This practice, called quarantine, was derived
Speaker 1: from the Italian words quaranta. Quaranta means forty and journey
Speaker 1: means days. So that's how we got the term in
Speaker 1: the first place. During that same time, UM, since you know,
Speaker 1: the plague was a fact of life for hundreds of
Speaker 1: years in Europe and UM, in Asia and the Middle East,
Speaker 1: finding sick people and quarantine quarantine them was actually a job. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, what happened is that not many people really
Speaker 1: wanted to volunteer for it. So what you would have
Speaker 1: is usually older women without any other means of income,
Speaker 1: who would search dead bodies or really sick people and um,
Speaker 1: they would look for these plague victims and then they
Speaker 1: would announce to local officials where they had found them
Speaker 1: in the families, and they get a few pence for
Speaker 1: each body, or for turning in a family that was
Speaker 1: harboring one of the bodies. Yeah, it's and this is
Speaker 1: interesting to note because it's easy to forget, especially looking
Speaker 1: at the Western and the United States model of quarantine.
Speaker 1: The quarantine is largely self reporting. It's more of an
Speaker 1: honor system. I just came from somewhere. I think I
Speaker 1: might be sick. Yes, quarantine me because I want treatment
Speaker 1: if there's something wrong with me, and maybe a distant second,
Speaker 1: I don't want to get anyone else sick either. But
Speaker 1: essentially there's gonna there's gonna be some self interest there.
Speaker 1: You go back to this older model and there is
Speaker 1: more of a sense of please don't board me up
Speaker 1: in my house. Uh, let me be sick on my
Speaker 1: own land or die in peace. And and one of
Speaker 1: the problems is that you you see, uh, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of space between those two attitudes, and you find
Speaker 1: various points on that on that line elsewhere in the
Speaker 1: world right now, as we discussed in our Bola episode,
Speaker 1: one of the problems that you have, you have locals
Speaker 1: who are going to be distrustive of outsiders who are
Speaker 1: coming in and saying, hey, let me treat you. Let
Speaker 1: why don't you come into our tent and let us
Speaker 1: treat you for your problems, and then telling you how
Speaker 1: to care for your dad, etcetera. Yeah, And then I
Speaker 1: think this example is like a really good sort of
Speaker 1: like how people might get paranoid because again they're trying
Speaker 1: to hold onto their family. And so you've got this person,
Speaker 1: this this older lady going around. She's the plague hunter,
Speaker 1: and you don't want her stopping by her home. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, this was a way to try
Speaker 1: to prevent further transmission. So you see our our modern
Speaker 1: quarantine practices, especially here in the state's kind of evolved
Speaker 1: over time. And in between state and local authorities UM made.
Speaker 1: They made the sporadic attempts to impose quarantine requirements over time,
Speaker 1: generally in response to what's going on in the world
Speaker 1: and what's coming in and crossing the border. UM. Continued
Speaker 1: outbreaks of yellow fever finally prompted Congress to pass federal
Speaker 1: quarantine legislation in eighteen seventy eight. UM outbreaks of cholera
Speaker 1: from passengerships arriving from Europe forced US some reinterpretations of
Speaker 1: this law in e and this provided the federal government
Speaker 1: with more authority in imposing those quarantine requirements, so much
Speaker 1: so that during World War One, thirty thousand prostitutes were
Speaker 1: rounded up. UM. Not because they were, you know, dealing
Speaker 1: in prostitution. UM, it was because they were known to
Speaker 1: be hookers. In the United States wanted their soldiers to
Speaker 1: be venearial disease free. Oh good luck with that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, exactly. Uh So that again wasn't an attempt
Speaker 1: to try to uh, you know, quash any sort of
Speaker 1: transmission here. Then, moving a little a little further on
Speaker 1: the timeline, Public Health Service Act of nineteen four established
Speaker 1: the federal government's quarantine authority for the first time, and
Speaker 1: this act gave US Public Health Service responsibility for preventing
Speaker 1: the introduction, transmission, and spread of communal diseases from foreign
Speaker 1: countries into the United States. Now this is now originally
Speaker 1: part of the Treasury Department Quarantine and Public Health Service
Speaker 1: or phs UM. The parent organization became part of the
Speaker 1: Federal Security Agency in nineteen thirty nine, and in nineteen
Speaker 1: PHS and Quarantine joined the Department of Health, Education, and
Speaker 1: Welfare UH and the quarantine was then transferred to the
Speaker 1: agency that we now know as the Centers for Disease
Speaker 1: Control and Prevention in sixty seven, and the VDC remained
Speaker 1: a part of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare
Speaker 1: until nineteen eighty, when the department was reorganized into the
Speaker 1: Department of Health and Human Services. And so today the
Speaker 1: Division of Global Migration and Wuarantine is part of CDC's
Speaker 1: National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases and it's
Speaker 1: headquartered right here in Atlanta. That's right. And just uh,
Speaker 1: you know, a reminder of zoonotic um is just referring
Speaker 1: to diseases that are transferred between animals and humans, Alright,
Speaker 1: So when can the government quarantine its own citizens. Well,
Speaker 1: here in the US, under forty two Code of Federal Regulations,
Speaker 1: Parts seventy and seventy one, the CDC is authorized to detain,
Speaker 1: medically examined and released persons arriving into the US and
Speaker 1: traveling between states who are suspected of carrying a communicable disease.
Speaker 1: And there's there's quite a list of these. Yeah. The
Speaker 1: list includes diphtheria, infectious tuberculosis, yellow fever, hemorrhagic fevers, stars,
Speaker 1: and any kind of new strain of influenza with pandemic potential. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the last large scale isolation and quarantine was last
Speaker 1: enforced during the influenza pandemic in ninety eighteen, nineteen nineteen.
Speaker 1: That's also known as the Spanish Blue Yeah, and that
Speaker 1: really underscores again what we said about quarantining becoming more
Speaker 1: of an honor system situation here in the United States,
Speaker 1: because beyond that that situation, the only other account that
Speaker 1: we have is that the CDC issued an order in
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty three to quarantine a single woman for
Speaker 1: smallpox exposure. So yeah, it's largely an artos system at
Speaker 1: this point. That the CDC is not running around pulling
Speaker 1: et shenanigans on anyone and wrapping houses and holding people
Speaker 1: against their will. No, And I think the last sort
Speaker 1: of kerfuffle about this happened in two thousand and seven
Speaker 1: when Andrew Speaker, Atlanta native, was placed under federal quarantine
Speaker 1: because officials learned that with tuberculosis. He had boarded two
Speaker 1: trans atlantic flights because he was he had a destination
Speaker 1: wedding and he knew he had tuberculosis. But well, you know,
Speaker 1: when you got a wedding, I forgot about this case. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: people were pretty upset about it. Um, so you know,
Speaker 1: and he apologized and he said he didn't realize what
Speaker 1: a bad idea that was. Well, you can get a
Speaker 1: card for that now the Hallmark, I'm sorry, I potentially exposed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're they're so funny too. I love those illustrations. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you know, officials found out they detained him
Speaker 1: in Montreal. Um, Now, if you were to break a quarantine,
Speaker 1: if you were put under if he had from the
Speaker 1: get go, then put under quarantine and he broke it,
Speaker 1: that would be a criminal misdemeanor. And in two thousand
Speaker 1: and nine, a twenty seven year old man in Arizona
Speaker 1: diagnosed with the same thing touberculosis, was then quarantine and
Speaker 1: prison hospital ward for ten months because he knew he
Speaker 1: had it, he failed to take his medicine, and he
Speaker 1: endangered others by going out and entertaining friends without wearing
Speaker 1: a mask. So again, as you say, this is not
Speaker 1: like people are going to enter your house and a
Speaker 1: has matt suit. Largely it's self reporting. Now, these laws
Speaker 1: can vary from states to state, and they can be
Speaker 1: really specific or abroad. Um. In some states, local health
Speaker 1: authorities implements state law, and tribes also have police power
Speaker 1: authority to take actions that would promote the health and
Speaker 1: well being of fair community. So, yes, there's a federal
Speaker 1: level to it, but there is very much a state
Speaker 1: level to it. Again giving you this idea that probably
Speaker 1: the has matt suit people are not going to show
Speaker 1: up just because the government is going to lock everybody down.
Speaker 1: So what happens when medical professionals suit up, Well, we've
Speaker 1: had some insight into that lately with the Ebola outbreak
Speaker 1: and um, if you look at Dr William Fisher's interview
Speaker 1: with Time magazine, he shows what it's like suiting up
Speaker 1: in the field. He has helped and guinea, And what
Speaker 1: he's saying is that, again you want to minimize your
Speaker 1: exposure to blood, to vomit, to diarrhea, to any other fluids.
Speaker 1: So they are all required to wear personal protection equipment,
Speaker 1: which starts with a base layer of scrubs that you
Speaker 1: then put a big thick layer of boots on, and
Speaker 1: we're talking like the wash kind of boots that go
Speaker 1: up to your knees. Then they put on an impermeable
Speaker 1: tai BAC suit that is incredibly hot, right, because again
Speaker 1: this is trying to minimize that the any sort of
Speaker 1: air flow that might come in trapping your own stinky
Speaker 1: fetid smell, right, And then you have two pairs of gloves.
Speaker 1: Then you place the impermeable hood over your head, neck
Speaker 1: and shoulders, a respirator covering your nose and mouth, and
Speaker 1: finally goggles. Everything is sealed. There is no speck of
Speaker 1: skin that is visible. So it's basically a full body prophylactic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I've seen it flippantly referred to as a as
Speaker 1: a space suit as well, which isn't really like that
Speaker 1: bar off the mark. You're essentially throwing up as many
Speaker 1: barriers as possible between you and the pathogen. Yeah. Also
Speaker 1: I read I don't know if this was from the
Speaker 1: Ion nine article about all the the odd quarantine things,
Speaker 1: but read somewhere. No, it was actually in the Time
Speaker 1: magazine that uh, the astronauts from the moon landing the
Speaker 1: person that they when they came back, they were quarantined.
Speaker 1: And I guess that's sort of like, well, you never know. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean at the time, what else are you gonna do? Uh.
Speaker 1: One of the important things and will continue to bear
Speaker 1: this out to give in mind, is that the quarantine
Speaker 1: and uh and and has mat and just the effective
Speaker 1: handling of these situations. It's not it's not just about oh,
Speaker 1: here's the suit. It's not just about here is the
Speaker 1: room and here's what's in the room. It's about, Okay,
Speaker 1: who's who's cleaning the suits, how are the suits handled
Speaker 1: after they're used, how are they provided, who's uh, who's
Speaker 1: who's managing the people that are cleaning it, what's you know,
Speaker 1: the various training regimes that are involved in and how
Speaker 1: the the the equipment is handled, and just the overall
Speaker 1: sanitation and management of the whole process. And so there
Speaker 1: are a lot of moving parts there that have to
Speaker 1: be they have to be in working order for a
Speaker 1: proper quarantine situation to take place. Yeah, and we'll look
Speaker 1: at that a little bit closer here when we talk
Speaker 1: about transporting someone who has a deadly virus. But I
Speaker 1: wanted to mention that at airports, and particularly right now,
Speaker 1: this is very active. CDC operates quarantine stations across the
Speaker 1: US and the airports and um officers are trained to
Speaker 1: spot symptoms of a virus, in this case, ebola, and
Speaker 1: anyone who departs from a flight from an affected country
Speaker 1: and appears to have symptoms would be tested and if
Speaker 1: they test positive, they would be rushed to a hospital
Speaker 1: in quarantine. So there are officials who are trained in
Speaker 1: this and they're on the lookout for it. There are
Speaker 1: twenty US quarantine stations located at ports of entry and
Speaker 1: land border crossings where international travelers arrive, and they are
Speaker 1: staffed with quarantine, medical and public health officers from the CDC.
Speaker 1: And indeed, most notably to the news right now, we
Speaker 1: do have one in Atlanta, which we acquired when we
Speaker 1: had the Olympics here and probably a lot of you
Speaker 1: have seen the imagery and the news of the jet
Speaker 1: that the retrofitted jet that was used to transport to
Speaker 1: US citizens who were were over in West Africa and
Speaker 1: who contracted ebola. And this thing is amazing to me, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you have it's almost like a container within a
Speaker 1: container within the airplane, and it's I feel like people
Speaker 1: were drawn to it as much because it's almost a
Speaker 1: comforting image because you see in this plane a lot
Speaker 1: of money thrown at a single individual to to keep
Speaker 1: to you know, in the name of treating their illness,
Speaker 1: but also in the name of preventing their illness from
Speaker 1: reaching anyone else. But it also ends up sort of
Speaker 1: playing into that pari paranoia because it's because you look
Speaker 1: at you look at the tremendous precautions that were taken
Speaker 1: to protect us from what's going on here. So can
Speaker 1: at times be you can almost oversell it a little
Speaker 1: bit um in terms of just a public perception of
Speaker 1: what's going on. It's like an eighteen million dollar ziplock job.
Speaker 1: Really if you look at it, the plane is large
Speaker 1: enough to accommodate a medical crew and it's outfitted with
Speaker 1: a modular aero medical biological containment system. So we're talking
Speaker 1: about this tent like plastic structure. Now, when we talk
Speaker 1: about the patients, um, you know, he or heart. There
Speaker 1: they are on the gurney and then they are tented
Speaker 1: and plastic and then they're put in another tent. And
Speaker 1: should there be any sort of um instance in which
Speaker 1: there's a hole in that plastic or anything that would
Speaker 1: cause a puncture in it, then what would happen is
Speaker 1: that the air would actually rush in from the inside
Speaker 1: as opposed the as opposed to the air from the
Speaker 1: inside of of that tent going out. And the reason
Speaker 1: for this is that they actually have negative pressure within
Speaker 1: the tent, so that that happens. Yeah, you just want
Speaker 1: to limit the airflows as much as possible, I mean,
Speaker 1: basically cut it off when it comes to breathing the
Speaker 1: sick individuals air. Because and remember that the next time
Speaker 1: you were on on a flight somewhere, you're essentially cramming
Speaker 1: into this small, confined space with everyone, and you have
Speaker 1: this agreement. Hey, everyone, we're going to all watch you know,
Speaker 1: the movie Quarantine on our individual screens, but we were
Speaker 1: going to breathe each other's air for the entire duration
Speaker 1: of this flight. Yeah, in this case, just imagine every
Speaker 1: single person individually tempted so that no pathogens could could
Speaker 1: cross into the cabin area. All right, So how effective
Speaker 1: is quarantining Well, in a large part it comes back
Speaker 1: to what I said earlier about there being a lot
Speaker 1: of moving parts. I mean, the quarantine is more than
Speaker 1: just the suit or the room. It's to what degree
Speaker 1: can you actually instigate a quarantine? Do you have the
Speaker 1: for instance, if you're going to use a quarantine um
Speaker 1: in another country, do you have the means to carry
Speaker 1: it out, you have the personnel to carry it out?
Speaker 1: And then do you have the trust of the individuals
Speaker 1: involved in it? Because if we've we've discussed quarantine is
Speaker 1: large to become an honor system situation here in the
Speaker 1: United States. But in cases where where an individual is
Speaker 1: not trusting of the quarantine situation, if they can break quarantine, well,
Speaker 1: than that throws a monkey wrench into the whole thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: here's a couple of examples. One is from Dr Howard Markle,
Speaker 1: who is the director of the University of Michigan Medical
Speaker 1: Schools Center for the History of Medicine. He looked to
Speaker 1: the past to see how effective quarantining was, and specifically
Speaker 1: he looked at the Spanish flu pandemic in the US
Speaker 1: and nineteen eighteen, and you look at a bunch of cities,
Speaker 1: and he found that cities that early on adopted what
Speaker 1: he calls old fashioned non pharmaceutical interventions like school closures,
Speaker 1: social distancing in the community, and workplace in quarantine and
Speaker 1: layered multiple interventions at once for a long period of time,
Speaker 1: fared so much better than other cities who did not
Speaker 1: um embrace any of these sort of closures. Uh. And
Speaker 1: when they finally did, they did it slower rates and
Speaker 1: so they had higher infections. So it's not just about
Speaker 1: quarantining is but these other layers of distancing the person
Speaker 1: from the pathogen. Indeed, quarantine is just one tool in
Speaker 1: the overall toolbox of managing infectious diseases. Now, if you
Speaker 1: look at Syria Leone, which now has more cases of
Speaker 1: the Abola virus in any other country in the regions um,
Speaker 1: the quarantine isn't strictly enforced, and neighbors still continue to
Speaker 1: stop buy grooving families who have been affected by a
Speaker 1: Bola And we talked more about this in the in
Speaker 1: the podcast episode an Evil specifically, but as our listener
Speaker 1: Jessica pointed out in the listener email that we read
Speaker 1: the community bond is very important in Sierra Leon in
Speaker 1: a place like that, and so it's very hard to
Speaker 1: stop people from um getting together and grieving for one another,
Speaker 1: or you know, even shutting down that part of their
Speaker 1: lives that is so integral to day to day survival.
Speaker 1: And then you should think about how these developing nations
Speaker 1: they lacked the public health resources needed to really enforce
Speaker 1: this in the first place, in the distrust of government
Speaker 1: and medical professionals and so on and so forth, and
Speaker 1: you can kind of see how this isn't really coming
Speaker 1: together as it could. So we have an example of
Speaker 1: how quarantine is done in the US. We have we've
Speaker 1: talked about the ways that we have an attempted quarantine
Speaker 1: in the past throughout history. But do we have another
Speaker 1: international example of quarantining in action. Yeah, and this is extreme.
Speaker 1: This comes um Um from China, and this was just
Speaker 1: in July of this year two thousand and fourteen, in
Speaker 1: which authorities lifted a nine day quarantine of one and
Speaker 1: fifty one individuals from the city of human which was
Speaker 1: instituted after a thirty eight year old man died of
Speaker 1: the bubonic plague infection. So here's the other thing about
Speaker 1: it that's not so crazy. It's that entry and exit
Speaker 1: points were also sealed off, trapping nearly thirty thousand residents. Now,
Speaker 1: no other cases had developed. But we have to contrast
Speaker 1: this to something that happened in the United States during
Speaker 1: the same timeframe. Health officials quickly treated and released four
Speaker 1: Colorado patients who had been hospitalized and diagnosed with the
Speaker 1: more lethal and more contagious pneumonic plague. And that's the
Speaker 1: respiratory form of the disease. And you can see how
Speaker 1: that would be more contagious because it's airborne. And still
Speaker 1: no other cases have been reported here in the the
Speaker 1: US of the pneumonic plague. So when you look at that,
Speaker 1: when you come to say, well, what in the world
Speaker 1: is going on? Is that an overreaction from China? Is
Speaker 1: that an under reaction from the United States? And some
Speaker 1: health professionals would tell you, look, we have more information now,
Speaker 1: we have better testing, We know how diseases act, so
Speaker 1: we are able to treat those people and send them
Speaker 1: on their way. There wasn't a need to like shut down,
Speaker 1: you know, a large swath of the United States and
Speaker 1: not let anybody leave it. Right. So, so the argument
Speaker 1: would be that the Chinese approach was maybe a little
Speaker 1: archaic because it didn't match up with our our current
Speaker 1: understanding of how these illnesses work and how we can
Speaker 1: treat them. It could be archaic, but it could also
Speaker 1: be on the part of Chinese officials of hey, we
Speaker 1: have a one of the largest populations in the world,
Speaker 1: and therefore we need to be stricter. Okay. In the
Speaker 1: argument could be made that the Chinese simply responded with
Speaker 1: the model of of of treatment that worked best for
Speaker 1: that particular situation. Indeed, indeed, and it's kind of you know,
Speaker 1: I would say that snor probably is scary for nine days,
Speaker 1: that there's entry points and exit points that you cannot access,
Speaker 1: and you could sort of wonder what's going on if
Speaker 1: you're in that community. Um that being said, you know,
Speaker 1: both both worked, so you can't can't blame you decide,
Speaker 1: all right, So there you go, quarantine in a nutshell,
Speaker 1: what it is, how it works, where it came from,
Speaker 1: to what degree it's effective or ineffective. Again, be sure
Speaker 1: to listen to that Hibola episode that aired just before
Speaker 1: this one if you haven't had a chance to yet,
Speaker 1: because that directly ties into everything we're talking about here,
Speaker 1: and you know, we're looking to possibly do some more
Speaker 1: content on infectious diseases in the future. For for my part,
Speaker 1: I always find them interesting. And so if there are
Speaker 1: particular diseases, uh, viruses, pathogens, what have you that you
Speaker 1: think are highly interesting that you would like us to cover,
Speaker 1: let us know and uh and will come see are
Speaker 1: looking into them as always. You can find us at
Speaker 1: stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. You have a
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Speaker 1: the viewers there as much as humanly possible and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: check that out. Yeah, And if you have some thoughts
Speaker 1: percolating on quarantine, if you've ever pen and fall in
Speaker 1: one let us know. Um. Also make sure you check
Speaker 1: out I O nine's article ten of the Craziest things
Speaker 1: that you Never knew about quarantines and check out the
Speaker 1: one on typhoid mary Is. It's pretty interesting. Um. All right,
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