[SouthernFreebird]

Does that mean we can quarantine Canada?

[Minty]

Thank God this desease, unlike AIDS, is one without civil rights.

[netmilsmom]

Does this mean we can close the border to Canada?

[taxed2death]

....probably a "dry run" to try out procedures in case of a real bio attack...

[mewzilla]

Just when I was starting to think this was a tempest in a teracup...

[what's up]

If quarantine had been in place for AIDS, it may not have been widespread.

[mabelkitty]

Praise the Lord!

[11B3]

I can hear all of the Losertarians now once they get on this thread......

[CJ Wolf]

hum

[Fixit]

[Constitution Day]

Masks and the women ... three Hong Kong women snapped on Tuesday in the streets of the city, which is reeling from the deadly pneumonia virus scare, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
It has claimed 15 lives in Hong Kong with 610 people infected.
Photo: AFP

[rwfromkansas]

This sadly may be necessary.

Thank goodness my bad illness has a wet, not a dry cough and my fever has gone down or I would be insisting the doc get a chest x-ray.

[mewzilla]

Question to anyone: Why does the prez need to sign an executive order? Wouldn't public health laws/regs already be in place to cover something like this?

[Petronski]

And among the radical nutjob Stalinist left, we have this observation:

Obviously this is a conspiracy . . . between Bush and Ashcroft to imprison more people who disagree with them wrongfully, without a hearing. We need regime change!

I kid you not, and there is not a hint of irony or sarcasm in the thread.

[afraidfortherepublic]

Whatever happened to that Northwest Airlines plance that they quarantined in San Jose last week? It was sitting on the tarmac with 2 sick passengers and 2 sick crew aboard.

How would have like to have been one of the other passengers -- stuck on the plane with sick people and not allowed to debark?

[freeeee]

I guess I missed the executive order prohibiting foreigners from SARS countries from entering the US.

After all, I know that our government would never resort to heavy handed measures on Americans before they closed the borders. Nope, never.

I mean if they did something like that, I might start to think our government cared more about the global economy more than our unalienable rights. I think I need to watch some more FOX News so I can get these terrrible thoughts out of my head.

[Saundra Duffy]

Now this is an executive order that makes sense!

[aristeides]

I guess this means the CDC takes the threat seriously, and persuaded Tommy Thompson, or this would never have ended up on the president's desk.

[TheBigB]

What he did was issue an executive order adding SARS to the already-existng list of communicable diseases for which a person can be quarantined.

[Brian S]

Bush issues order allowing quarantine of SARS patients
By the Mercury News

President Bush issued an executive order today that would allow the quarantine of patients with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, the mysterious respiratory illness thought to have originated in China.

The illness has affected a suspected 115 people in the United States and 2,400 worldwide, killing around 80. Santa Clara County is at the epicenter of the country's SARS outbreak, with nine suspected cases, more than any other locale.

The order also names cholera, diphtheria, infectious tuberculosis, plague, smallpox, yellow fever and viral hemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola, Lassa and Marburg.

Bush's order allows the Health and Human Services secretary to decide when such a quarantine is needed.

On Tuesday, international attention focused on the South Bay when an American Airlines flight from Tokyo was grounded for two hours after its arrival in San Jose because several people aboard displayed possible SARS symptoms. None had the disease.

Now, county public health officials plan to dig deeper for potential SARS cases through what they call ``expanded surveillance.'' The county is likely to be the first in the nation to more aggressively define SARS cases.

To define a case as suspected SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control requires doctors to diagnose a fever of more than 100.5 degrees and respiratory symptoms such as a cough or difficulty breathing -- in conjunction with recent travel to China, Vietnam, Hong Kong or Singapore.

IF YOU'RE INTERESTED

Go to www.cdc.gov or call the Santa Clara County Public Health Department at (408) 885-3980 for more information about SARS.