This story is a few days old, initially published details heavily implied an incident with plague, but those could well be rumors; later official claims said "pneumonia of unknown etiology". But do you lock up 200 potentially contacted people in hospitals within a single day for a random seasonal crap?
(No, they aren't ill yet, they are contacts; plague is not nearly as infectious by itself as SARS-CoV-2 (unless they be breeding it), and anybody found ill early enough would have treatment far better than in Middle age.)
If you like to worry, I have a more realistic one for you. Ok, lets assume this one is a case of negligence with natural plague - not nearly as infectious as we can imagine after COVID, and relatively easy to treat with but common antibiotics. What if it was something more infectious (transmission probability on contact * incubation period), like smallpox? The fact that a worker assumedly just walked home after exposure like nothing happened should be the nightmare fuel; a similar case of negligence can easily start a new pandemic.
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u/tiller_luna 6h ago edited 6h ago
This story is a few days old, initially published details heavily implied an incident with plague, but those could well be rumors; later official claims said "pneumonia of unknown etiology". But do you lock up 200 potentially contacted people in hospitals within a single day for a random seasonal crap?
(No, they aren't ill yet, they are contacts; plague is not nearly as infectious by itself as SARS-CoV-2 (unless they be breeding it), and anybody found ill early enough would have treatment far better than in Middle age.)