| There is a lot of talk these days concerning the | | | | mandatory mask laws. The District of Columbia even |
| government placing quarantines on its citizens in the | | | | made it mandatory for the citizens of their district to |
| event of a major pandemic. The concept behind the | | | | be restricted to their homes. San Francisco's authorities |
| quarantines is not a new idea, but rather it has been | | | | on the other hand prominently displayed an assortment |
| around for hundreds of years. Our federal authorities | | | | of signs and posters everywhere with the slogan |
| have not been the initial creator of quarantines | | | | "Wear a Mask and You Could Save Your Life". Masks |
| although they have used them in the past and will likely | | | | at the time were shown to be 99 percent effective |
| use them in the future as well. | | | | against the influenza. At one point during the epidemic |
| Biblical quarantines have been mentioned in the bible | | | | the health authorities decided to quarantine the |
| where a seven day period of isolation was mandatory | | | | complete campus at New York's Syracuse University |
| for priests when an infection is imminent. The literal | | | | for a period of 2 ½ weeks. |
| translation of the word quarantine means a 40 day | | | | The last involuntary quarantine that was established in |
| period. Many of the early Mediterranean coastal cities | | | | America was in 1963. In 2007, a lawyer from Atlanta |
| that grow up along the various shipping routes would | | | | was quarantined in a Denver hospital after it was |
| impose quarantines during the time of 15th century | | | | assessed that he may have had a drug-resistant case |
| black plague. | | | | of tuberculosis. Fortunately for the lawyer the CDC |
| Here in America the first actual quarantine occurred in | | | | had erred in their determinations and his case was |
| 1796, when legislation was established to permit the | | | | merely a mild form of the illness. |
| federal government to intervene and assist the various | | | | So as you can readily see quarantines are nothing |
| states during those periods of the yellow fever | | | | new to society, however a mass quarantine the size |
| epidemics. During the dreaded 1918 influenza epidemic | | | | of the one that may be predicted for America with its |
| the states that were involved established specific | | | | swine flu epidemic could be the largest on record. |
| quarantines and even went as far as to impose some | | | | |