What’s the point of quarantine?
21 Jul, 09 | by Iain Brassington
I’ve reached an important milestone: the first case of Pig Aids swine flu among people I know. It’s quite exciting.
She’s been told to stay in, avoiding contact with others, for five days by one person, for 10 by another. I’m wondering why this is.
In the early days of the illness, there might have been a point. When we were dealing with a few tens of sniffly people, it might have been possible to contain the virus (assuming, of course, that we were willing also to close all ports and build a big glass dome over the UK just in case). For the sake of public protection, there might have been some warrant for this. Let’s not forget, of course, that not so long ago we were much more worried that’d it’d be a really serious illness - much more serious than it would appear to be at the moment.
But, at this stage, I’m wondering whether quarantine is any use - or justified at all. Apparently, there were an estimated 50 thousand new cases in the UK last week. Why quarantine someone to contain a disease that’s infecting fifty thousand a week? That does seem a bit pointless. Even if the worst predictions about the disease come true - the Chief Medical Officer for England and Wales predicts up to 65 000 UK deaths, but even that’s deaths associated with , not from, H1N1 - it’s hard to see how keeping people sort-of-isolated (until they’ve run out of coffee and have to nip to the shops, at least) would make any difference at all.
Actually - it will make a difference, come to think of it. It’ll cause unnecessary worry and distress.
Besides - isn’t quarantine 40 days, by definition?
Thanks - it’s an interesting post.
It’s no surprise that there would be conflicting advice on this. And it is hardly binding, is it? So I’m not sure it’s such a big deal. Doctors give differing opinions. Politicians do so too. And bloggers, philosophers, lawyers, parents, friends, etc., etc..
Where’s the issue?
1. People will offer advice, and often it will conflict with the advice of others
2. People will receive advice - some of it bad - and sometimes they will follow it.
But it will take something much heavier than some cases of flu before the Government enforces quarantine. (Ie, does your friend have to follow the advice, and if not, what’s the problem? Free speech? Quacks? Something else?)
On 40 days - I think probably we must detach etymology from entrenched definition.
John Coggon
July 21st, 2009 at 3:54 pm
In discussing “social distancing” measures it is important to note that both the final size of the epidemic and the peak incidence are of interest. Even if the final size, i.e. total number affected is not changed by social distancing, peak incidence might be lowered. If there is an incidence rate above which the health care system will have difficulty coping with the new cases and social distancing can keep the actual incidence rate below this, then there is a good reason to recommend social distancing.
Søren Holm
July 22nd, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Actually, from someone at the front line ( cue explosions and tracer fire) it’s actually 5 days as thats how much Tamiflu you get. The big problem is that we are giving Tamiflu like sweeties and surprise, surprise, most do not have swine flu. We are then left with a quandary. They have been labelled as swine flu so we do assume they are not responding or do we say they have something else. Both mean they need to be seen but because of quarantine, they need to be visited so the so called reduction in workload due to the flu line actually results in more work. Oh, and those people saying they have flu when they dont so that they can take the drug for ‘prevention’ they are not allowed again for 6 months. So if they do get ill, does the State have the moral right to say no to someone with swine flu when they took Tamiflu for the wrong reasons 3 months previously?
Good point about enforcement. We had situations where people turned up ill with ? swine flu and we were under instructions to turn them away and ask them to phone for advice. Say they die on the way home, noone has yet explained to me how doctors can be blameless. Do we say we were ‘only following orders’?
John O'Malley
July 31st, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Good point, well made. It’s a bit of a joke really!
Medical Revision
August 1st, 2009 at 11:34 am