Quarantine Road

I was looking for a place to recycle some tvs and computers and I came across the Quarantine Road Landfill (They probably recycle by mixing with dirt) I havent' found infor about it yet, but here is a similar place in Virginia.

The articles give some idea of why medical people reacted so quckly and strongly to Corona, and what can happen if they don't or people don't cooperate. They didnt' just make up these rules this year.

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"During that time, they knew nothing about germ theory but knew if they separated sick people from well people, if they didn't let sick ships into port, they had a better chance of not having epidemic outbreak," said Finley-Croswhite.

But what actually saved the majority of the population from the outbreak, stressed Finley-Croswhite, is what we are all doing today, 165 years later.

"All of the social distancing we have gone through isn't a new thing; it goes back in time as a proven practice for preventing spread of disease. There are lessons to be learned in that," Finley-Croswhite explained.

......In the 20th century, the federal government took over Quarantine oversight, rules and regulations.

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've been planning to go to Norfolk some summer and if I remember, I'll go see Quarantine Road, but I know I'll remember to go see the Quarantine Road in Baltimore.

..... Failing to abide by quarantine guidelines, however, is what led to the 1855 yellow fever disaster when the captain of the Benjamin Franklin, a ship recently arrived from St. Thomas, lied to quarantine officers then emptied his bilge against regulations, unleashing the deadly mosquitoes that transmit the disease.

---- See how one person is able to kill many with disease?

When encountering disease, 19th-century people were not much different from Americans today. Many asserted that quarantine compromised their rights and that they should be able to choose whether to obey quarantine officers. Diseases and scapegoating are linked now just as they were then. While some people have blamed COVID-19 on the Chinese, for example, many doctors in Norfolk in 1855 placed the blame for yellow fever on the Irish who lived downtown on the impoverished streets where the disease first appeared. Today wealthier people have access to health insurance that covers medical expenses; in the past the wealthy most often had the means to flee disease-filled cities, while the poor were abandoned to an awful fate. In the case of Norfolk, many of those citizens who fled for urban centers further north never returned - taking their business interests and money with them.

Disease outbreaks also reveal the interconnected nature of communities. Many Norfolk and Portsmouth citizens became reliant on slaves and free blacks to care for them. People of African descent had some immunity to yellow fever and experienced only mild cases if they contracted the disease. Stories exist of slaves who refused to abandon their owners during the crisis when the sheer chaos made escape possible. Some even remained with orphaned white children after the parents died. The African American contribution to health care and other vital services during the yellow fever outbreak is a critical part of the narrative.

Standing on an empty campus on what is left of Quarantine Road today, one might shudder to think of quarantine in the past. Even so, the most important lesson learned here in the context of yellow fever is what happens when quarantine is disregarded. Perhaps our local history can teach us patience as we continue deal with this pandemic.

Finally, Baltimore. Pretty good.

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Reply to
micky
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The only flaw in that is we DID let sick ships into port, let the people land and took their word they would quarantine. They didn't. As Trader said, they went home to be with their family ... in New York and New Jersey. We know how that worked out.

Reply to
gfretwell

Exactly. Even the word "quarantine" has been debased to mean just staying home, voluntarily and without supervision. The countries that did best in dealing with this pandemic were generally the ones that had strong societies, strong governments, or both. America has neither. And more pandemics are surely on the way, some of them worse than this one.

Reply to
Neill Massello

Nothing will make you stay home like a Chinese soldier in the street with a machine gun.

Reply to
gfretwell

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