city hit buy bubonic plague...

[Sunna]

china hit buy outbreak , city in lockdown.

alright me old china

[Mortblanc]

If this story is accurate there is more to this outbreak than is evident.

The US has 15-20 cases of Bubonic plague each year and they do not quarantine the entire town where it is found.

This case must have jumped to the Pneumatic or Septic strain and must be more widespread than the one case they are reporting, with 151 people in "isolation". I think "Isolation" might be the Chinese for "they got it too".

However, it is a good indication of the lengths that a government will go in order to control an outbreak in a first world nation.

Compare this reaction to the reaction of the African nations that have allowed the unrestricted spread of Ebola all over west Africa in recent months. Any of those countries can round up enough soldiers to fight a bush war on a moments notice but never enough to quarantine a mud hut village of 100 people.

[Jace]

I (and all the family who happened to be staying with me) was placed in isolation in 2003 during the SARS outbreak, after one of our colleagues was diagnosed with it.

Basically everyone in our office was locked up in their apartments with their families for 10 days, with a police or other guard outside to make sure that no-one entered or exited. The only visitors we received were people from the health department in their bio hazard suits who came every few hours to take our temperatures and spray disinfectant everywhere, plus the cop/guard dropping off food.

That time I think there were three reported cases of SARS in our city, which led to thousands of people being locked up in their homes. I guess in this case that has been reported, the guy who has died was a bus conductor or something similar, and they figured it was easier to just quarantine everyone within his immediate vicinity, then lock the whole town down rather than figure out exactly who has been affected.