Quarantines, facemasks, and bras

China essentially has put the Wuhan city area under quarantine, but it's a bit late since quite a few cases or suspected cases have been diagnosed in travelers from China.

Scott Adams podcast asks WTF is going on when no one has stopped people from China entering other countries.

yes, especially with Chinese new year this weekend.

Thousands of Chinese will be visiting China and then coming home.

With the enclosed atmosphere in airplanes, infectious diseases can spread through the air.,, or maybe not, says this article: influenza will spread only to people within 4 feet of the infected person. However, that estimate assumes a short flight where people don't leave their seat, and then there is this:

as Michaeleen Doucleff at NPR reports, tuberculosis can be spread within two rows of an infected person on a flight over eight hours. SARS can reach as far as three rows and possibly up to seven.

the problem with Wuhan virus is that it's not sure how close you have to be to get the disease. Some anecdotal stories of family members getting infected, and of course some physicians and nurses who are in direct contact with patients have caught it. 

But what about those nearby but not in direct contact? What about those who collect the trash with infected sputum or saliva contaminating it? Can it be spread (like the common cold) via hands and things you touch? And is it spread via excrement, meaning flies are also a possible way to spread the disease. 

It's not known.

But there is an alternative: Quarantine. The latent period is a week to ten days.

this is being done to a certain extent, since the Chinese have essentially put the Wuhan area in quarantine.

what is not being done is the "circle" screening: find those who have been in Wuhan during the last 2 weeks, and those in contact with someone who had been in Wuhan, and then isolating them away from the public, maybe in their own homes with a "Quarantine" sign on it.

Smithsonian article on quarantine for polio explains how it's done: and notes two problems with this: People don't report early cases, and people just don't obey the quarantine and stay inside.

Even people who worked with Ebola and returned back to the USA and who were at risk for developing the disease refused to stay in their homes. Even MEDICALLY TRAINED people who had been in direct contact refused to obey the quarantine rules.

Sigh. 

So now the question is: what does one do about travelers from China who are now traveling to other countries?

And what do you do with people who had been in China entering a country found to have a fever at the airport?

instead of doing temperature scans of people entering a country, maybe the airlines should be doing temperature scans before people even enter an airplane..

. actually this might be too late. Don't let them into the airport.

And if someone who is high risk for arrives in another country and is found to have a fever, maybe they need to isolate everyone on the plane with them for ten days.

Expensive? Yes but not as much as a major epidemic.

Those who already have been diagnosed should be isolated in a hospital.

But those who had been in direct contact with these patients also need to be isolated: home isolation would be enough, especially if they wore a facemask and avoided close contact with their family.

Already people in Asia wear facemasks all the time: It is a common site during influenza season, or by people on treatment for bronchitis or tuberculosis.

One result of this is that there is now a facemask shortage in Asia.

And if you don't have a facemask?

well, we ran out of heavy facemasks here after Taal volcano exploded, and the wimpy paper ones often leaked and also were in short supply.

So the Dept of Health here suggested to improvise:

Diapers, bras, panties can serve as improvised face masks: DOH Arianne Merez, ABS-CBN News

MANILA -- Filipinos who cannot buy N95 face masks due to high demand can improvise to protect themselves from ash fall, the Department of Health said Tuesday.

Diapers and undergarments such as bras and panties can be used to protect one’s nose and mouth from inhaling ash, Health Assistant Secretary Maria Laxamana told reporters in Malacañang. 

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two articles at the NEJM discuss the disease LINK LINK2

neither article answers the question of how easily does it spread and one worry is that some patients won't have symptoms but will spread it.

and so far most of those dying are old or have other diseases such as diabetes that weaken the immune system.

FR has a discussion and links but includes conspiracy theories and fake news among the hard news information.

Instapundit links inlcludes this one: The numbers are underestimated. (? asymptomatic cases or those with few symptoms? not being counted).
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one of the comments is about a John Ringo book. Wikipedia link
Yes, I read the book when it was still free at Baen...sort of a mixture of Xenophon and world war z....