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Why You Don’t Need to Isolate Yourself to Survive the Next Pandemic

September 9, 2019

And other do’s and don’ts from a public health expert

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Why You Don’t Need to Isolate Yourself to Survive the Next Pandemic

Monday, September 9th, 2019

We know what pandemics look like in the movies: sudden-onset symptoms, rapid transmission, chaos at hospitals and ports of entry … and, pretty soon, roving bands of armed survivors looting burned-out gas stations and picking off the weak. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Chances are the next pandemic will start out slow-moving. And there’s a lot we can do to prevent it from turning apocalyptic.

For starters, we can listen to public health experts. On a recent episode of How To, Charles Duhigg spoke to someone who studies pandemics for a living: Dr. Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. Inglesby challenged Hollywood-inspired misconceptions about pandemics and laid out what people should and shouldn’t do in the face of an infectious disease outbreak. Some highlights of their conversation, condensed and edited for clarity, are transcribed below.

…continue reading ‘Why You Don’t Need to Isolate Yourself to Survive the Next Pandemic’

Thumb image via article – Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Getty Images Plus.

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Slate

How a Measles Quarantine Can Lead to Eviction

March 20, 2019

Without paid sick leave, workers who are quarantined for health reasons face job loss and worse

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How a Measles Quarantine Can Lead to Eviction

Wednesday, March 20th, 2019

In June 2014, Rex Archer, the director of health in Kansas City, Missouri, quarantined five families during a measles outbreak because several of the families’ members had contracted measles. The residents were told to stay in their home and avoid returning to work for several days.

Quarantine is a necessary, though difficult, measure that public-health officials sometimes take for people who are unvaccinated or at high risk of contracting a very contagious illness. In the case of measles, quarantine can last three weeks. Breaking quarantine can be a crime—one Wisconsin man was recently charged with a misdemeanor for going to the gym when he was supposed to be confined to his home.

…continue reading ‘How a Measles Quarantine Can Lead to Eviction’

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The Atlantic

CDC Seeks Controversial New Quarantine Powers To Stop Outbreaks

February 2, 2017

Federal health officials may be about to get greatly enhanced powers to quarantine people, as part of an ongoing effort to stop outbreaks of dangerous contagious diseases

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CDC Seeks Controversial New Quarantine Powers To Stop Outbreaks

Thursday, February 2nd, 2017

The new powers are outlined in a set of regulations the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published late last month to update the agency’s quarantine authority for the first time since the 1940s.

The outlined changes are being welcomed by many health lawyers, bioethicists and public health specialists as providing important tools for protecting the public. But the CDC’s increased authority is also raising fears that the rules could be misused in ways that violate civil liberties.

The update was finalized at the end of the Obama administration and was scheduled to go into effect Feb. 21. But the Trump administration is reviewing the changes as part of its review of new regulations. So the soonest the changes could go into effect has been pushed to the end of March.

Image: By TimBray at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17401843

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NPR Shots Blog

Why We Shouldn’t Quarantine Travelers Because of Zika

February 8, 2016

Contrary to some Republican presidential candidates, public health experts say there should not be any travel or trade restrictions because of the virus

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Why We Shouldn’t Quarantine Travelers Because of Zika

Monday, February 8th, 2016

If GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie were to be believed one way to help tamp down the threat of Zika in the United States would be to quarantine individuals with symptoms of the mosquito-borne illness coming into the country from Brazil. The World Health Organization has already said that such measures would not be a good idea, however. The director-general of the WHO, Margaret Chan, specifically said earlier this month that there is “no public health justification for restrictions on travel or trade to prevent the spread of Zika virus.”

Christie, the Governor of New Jersey, was asked during the Republican debate in New Hampshire on Saturday night, just days ahead of that state’s primary, if he would quarantine individuals returning from Brazil with symptoms of Zika virus. “You bet I would,” he replied. Presidential candidate and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson then weighed in to say, “If we have evidence that they are infected and that there is evidence that that infection can be spread by something that they’re doing, yes.” Carson added that “willy-nilly going out and quarantining a bunch of people because they’ve been to Brazil, I don’t think that that’s going to work.” But so far public health officials have advised against any level of quarantine.

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Scientific American

Creepy Or Comforting? South Korea Tracks Smartphones To Curb MERS

June 11, 2015

So far, South Korea has reported 122 MERS cases. And the government is actively tracking the whereabouts of people possibly exposed to the virus

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Creepy Or Comforting? South Korea Tracks Smartphones To Curb MERS

Thursday, June 11th, 2015

More than 3,400 people are now under quarantine in South Korea’s fight to contain an outbreak of the Middle East respiratory syndrome — a deadly virus that can cause severe pneumonia and organ failure.

So far, South Korea has reported 122 MERS cases. And the government is actively tracking the whereabouts of people possibly exposed to the virus.

Chung-ahm is a Buddhist monk who’s quarantined in the Jangduk village in southern South Korea.

We called him up because we couldn’t visit him in person. For the past week, government quarantine orders have meant no outsiders are allowed into Jangduk village, and no villagers are allowed out. The entire 105-person village is quarantined.

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NPR: Goats and Soda Blog

Did Authorities Use the Wrong Approach to Stop Ebola?

May 27, 2015

A new study suggests there was a better way to respond to the Ebola outbreak

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Did Authorities Use the Wrong Approach to Stop Ebola?

Wednesday, May 27th, 2015

It’s known that the response to the most recent Ebola outbreak, which as of Tuesday had infected more than 27,000 people and killed 11,130, was far too slow. Now,a new study suggests that even once they got started, their approach to curbing the spread wasn’t the most efficient or effective.

One of the staples of infectious disease outbreak responses was contact tracing: finding everyone who comes in direct contact with a sick person. And it makes sense that health authorities would employ that in this outbreak, since it’s proven in the past to be an effective way to contain the spread of a virus. However, experts at the New England Complex Systems Institute released new researchTuesday that argues contact tracing wasn’t the best approach.

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TIME

Doctor Who Survived Ebola Says He Was Unfairly Cast as a Hazard and a Hero

February 26, 2015

Dr. Craig Spencer, New York’s first and to date only Ebola patient, said in an essay published on Wednesday that he was falsely accused of putting the public at risk and was superficially depicted as “a fraud, a hipster and a hero” after he was hospitalized last fall

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Doctor Who Survived Ebola Says He Was Unfairly Cast as a Hazard and a Hero

Thursday, February 26th, 2015

“The truth is, I am none of those things,” Dr. Spencer wrote in a personal but also polemical essay published online Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. He added: “I’m just someone who answered a call for help and was lucky enough to survive.”

The essay is one of the first times he has given a detailed public accounting of the course of his illness and how it affected him, physically and psychologically. He also recently gave an interview to WNYC radio.

Dr. Spencer, 33, an attending physician in the emergency department of NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center, wrote that when he returned to New York from Guinea, where he had been treating Ebola patients with Doctors Without Borders, “the suffering I’d seen, combined with exhaustion, made me feel depressed for the first time in my life.”

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New York Times

Ebola Patient’s Family Quarantined

October 2, 2014

Questions arise about preparations and whether family members have been treated with adequate respect. A failure to meet basic moral obligations?

Why You Don’t Need to Isolate Yourself to Survive the Next Pandemic

Why You Don’t Need to Isolate Yourself to Survive the Next Pandemic

How a Measles Quarantine Can Lead to Eviction

How a Measles Quarantine Can Lead to Eviction

CDC Seeks Controversial New Quarantine Powers To Stop Outbreaks

CDC Seeks Controversial New Quarantine Powers To Stop Outbreaks

Why We Shouldn’t Quarantine Travelers Because of Zika

Why We Shouldn’t Quarantine Travelers Because of Zika

Creepy Or Comforting? South Korea Tracks Smartphones To Curb MERS

Creepy Or Comforting? South Korea Tracks Smartphones To Curb MERS

Did Authorities Use the Wrong Approach to Stop Ebola?

Did Authorities Use the Wrong Approach to Stop Ebola?

Doctor Who Survived Ebola Says He Was Unfairly Cast as a Hazard and a Hero

Doctor Who Survived Ebola Says He Was Unfairly Cast as a Hazard and a Hero

Ebola Patient’s Family Quarantined

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