Quarantine - Notable Quarantines

Notable Quarantines

• Eyam was a village in Britain that chose to isolate itself to stop the spread of the plague northward in 1665. They were hindered in this by the time's limited knowledge of the disease: what caused it, what forms infection took, what animal vectors carried it, how it spread.
• Typhoid Mary was quarantined in New York in the early twentieth century. She was an asymptomatic typhoid carrier and was considered a public health hazard.
• The astronauts on Apollo 11 were put into quarantine for a couple of weeks in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory to make sure that they didn't carry any unknown diseases from the moon.
• The 1972 outbreak of smallpox in Yugoslavia was the final outbreak of smallpox in Europe. The WHO fought the outbreak with extensive quarantine, and the government instituted martial law.
• Ted DeVita had severe aplastic anemia and lived in a sterile hospital environment for 8 years due to his compromised immune system.
• David Vetter suffered from a rare genetic disorder and lived his entire life in an isolated sterile environment.
• In 1942, during World War II, British forces tested out their biological weapons programme on Gruinard Island and infected it with anthrax. The quarantine was lifted in 1990 when the island was declared safe and a flock of sheep were released onto the island.
• Robert Daniels was quarantined in 2007 for having the deadliest form of tuberculosis in an Arizona hospital, partly for not wearing a mask during his time in the outside world when he was diagnosed with the disease.
• The UK's anti-rabies quarantine regulations were a major plot point in "A Diplomatic Incident", a 1987 episode of Yes, Prime Minister.
• Andrew Speaker was placed under U.S. federal quarantine in 2007 after flying to Europe while knowing he had tuberculosis, then flying back after learning it was an extensively drug resistant strain. He is the first person since 1963 to be under federal quarantine.
• On 28 July 1814 the convict ship Surry arrived in Sydney Harbour from England. Over 40 persons had died during the voyage of typhoid including 36 convicts. The ship was placed in quarantine on the North Shore. Convicts were landed and a camp established in the immediate vicinity of what is now Jeffrey Street in Kirribilli. This was the first site in Australia to be used for quarantine purposes.