Of Plagues and Lockdowns Past

In his account of the year 1606 in English history, James Shapiro writes of the resurgence of plague in London in July of that year. With plague deaths in excess of 40 a week, the theatres were closed, including that of Shakespeare's company, the Kings Men, who lowered the flag at the Globe and locked the playhouse doors.

Under the applicable regulations, those in a household with an infected person were compelled to remain at home in quarantine. Those caught escaping from a quarantined house

who did not have the marks of plague on them could be whipped and those with visible plague sores were guilty of a felony and subject to execution.

Which makes the practice in Wuhan of enforcing quarantines by nailing up doors with two-by-fours seem mild in comparison.

Recession Social Distancing: Source

By the fall, the Lord Mayor of London, like Covid-encumbered Donald Trump today, faced accusations of failing to take "meet care in repressing the contagion of the plague."

Among those inadequate measures, the City had ordered that doors of infected households be painted with a red cross. However, it was said that too many were washing the paint off, prompting the Lord Mayor to promise the use of oil-based, not water-based, paint in the future.

By October, the death rate was averaging over 150 a week and diplomats, including the Venetian Ambassador, were departing. In response to the growing crisis, the Lord Mayor promised to expel beggars from the city, and to post watchmen outside every infected house, thereby "suffering no person to go more out of the said house."

Meantime, those attending on the sick, which is to say the UberEats and GrubHub of the day, were required to carry a yard-long red stick, thereby to prompt other users of the public space to social distance.

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Coronavirus Quote of the Day

Dr. Richard Schabas, former Chief Medical Officer of Ontario, 

Chief of Staff at York Central Hospital, etc.

Quarantine belongs back in the Middle Ages. Save your masks for robbing banks. Stay calm and carry on. Let’s not make our attempted cures worse than the disease. Source

Related: 

SPR: A Swiss Doctor's Diary on Covid19

How China Ended the Corona Virus Epidemic -- If It Has Ended

Infectious diseases cause epidemics when infected individuals infect, on average, more than one other person, causing the total number of infections to grow despite recovery or death of those previously infected. The number of individuals infected by each infected person is call the Reproduction number (R0).

Epidemics end when R0 falls below one. The COVID19 epidemic in China went exponential in January, with an R0 peaking at almost 4.0, and then tailed off throughout late January and February.

Why did it tail off?

Simple: quarantines and sequestrations.

Quarantine means restricting people's movement. This may mean restricting or prohibiting travel from one city to another, often referred to as a "lock-down,"or it may mean closing schools, universities, and places of business, thereby keeping people largely confined to their homes, rather than crowding together in the streets, on trains and buses, and in all places of assembly where those who are infected but asymptomatic can pass on the infection.

Quarantines may extend to ordering people to stay home, or even physically barring them from leaving their homes.

Sequestration means keeping the infected out of contact with the uninfected, including their own family or others with whom they share accommodation. In Wuhan, that was achieved by the creation of many thousands of beds in isolation facilities. These facilities are not primarily treatment facilities, they are simply places where sick people are put together out of contact with healthy members of their family and community.

The effectiveness of sequestration can be greatly enhanced if infected and infectious, but asymptomatic, individuals can be identified. Simple and rapid COVID19 tests have been developed, although control of the epidemic in China seems to have been achieved prior to widespread use of testing.

China's success in controlling COVID19 is proof of the effectiveness of China's authoritarian form of government in handling a crisis of the kind that would be experienced in the event of a biological WMD attack. As the virus spreads around the world, we will learn whether Western governments are can achieve by gentler means, China's remarkable success in containing this novel Corona virus.

But China's success remains to be confirmed. As reported here, some in China say the victory over the bat flu is FAKE.

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