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Quarantine: Health, safety and guns.

pointless and uncalled for

15:53 / 24.04.03

I saw an interview with the man responsible for third world strategic planning of the AIDS pandemic handling. He was giving his opinion on governmental responsibility to the SARS outbreak and posed some radical ideas on the matter such as Local Area Quarantine enforced as a police option.

It seems like a measure that harkens back to far less educated times and very much a panic reaction, however, with the potential fatality of this disease is it appropriate.

In a situation where life is essentially a consideration, what could be considered an 'appropriate' response to an instance of a fatal disease with very high communicability and does this move the bounds of humanitarianism.

On a related note, do you think this might cause cases of institutional reaciam profiling.

16:23 / 24.04.03

Quarantine's a tough one, ain't it. The only way to know for sure whether it's merited is to have the disease spread, in which case the bugs are already out of the box.

Singapore's already quarantining folks.

Is Toronto?

17:27 / 24.04.03

I think we're on a "voluntary quarantine" policy so far. This may change, as there's an assault case pending against a man for spreading SARS (He was told by his workplace to quarantine himself after exposure, he refused, and infected several co-workers.) Downtown hospitals are on near-full lockdown, no visitors, lots of employee screenings.

21:28 / 24.04.03

I was thinking about that today... if they could quarantine the city, or would that just cause billions of dollars of lost wages and business. The premier just announced that there would be full wage compensation for anyone who goes into voluntary quarantine, just so people don't avoid it for money's sake.

It seems a bit extreme. If it was a lot more communicable, maybe, but SARS doesn't seem as extreme as say, the plague.

paketto_keiretsu

00:47 / 25.04.03

i think the quarantine was mandatory/enforced in Singapore via webcams of all things. a couple of people went out anyway and most likely infected more people. i think that the monetary reason may have had a part in it, so that is a good idea from toronto.