Given that the first centralized quarantine stations were set up in 1799, @DavidAFrench is on pretty solid historical footing here.https://twitter.com/DavidAFrench/status/1260817466290298882 …
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George Washington was personally present at the start of this, though he left the city early on. There's no record of him being at all opposed to these measures.
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Of course, these measures were misguided: Yellow Fever is spread by mosquitoes, not person-to-person, so none of these measures had any effect. The outbreak is so sad in part because it was so misunderstood. Also because 10% of the population of Philadelphia died in 7 weeks.
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At the time Philadelphia was America's largest city; there's an argument that the 1793 Yellow Fever outbreak is *the reason* New York surpassed Philadelphia so quickly, a fact which was not widely anticipated at the time.
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But regardless of all this, the simple fact remains that the government response to the 1793 Philadelphia outbreak included mobility restrictions and quarantine programs--- and there's no evidence the founders saw that as a threat to liberty.
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There were differences, of course. Churches were kept open.
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But like folks George Washington personally appointed the guy who organized the centralized quarantine program in Philadelphia. I'm not sure how you can argue CQ is un-American.
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Also, sidenote, the 1793 Yellow Fever outbreak was bad, but not the worst. 1853 in New Orleans killed 9,000. 1878 in Memphis killed 5,100, almost 10% of the city's population.https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/027795369290255O …
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Oh man, I didn't know this one! Paul Revere was on MA's board of health, which was tasked with... organizing maritime quarantine procedures!https://twitter.com/MPoirier1976/status/1261118987783548928 …
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Since 1793 we have learned a bit more about medicine and have advanced medical capabilities, so tell us more about how we should be stuck with the proposed solutions they attempted.
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Or you could look at the yellow fever as an example of the government exacerbating a problem by guessing at the cause, issuing a restriction, then doing nothing as the city was abandoned because what they did had no effect.
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Even with that the quarantine was targeted, (not everyone) and only one city, not everywhere. In fact the original quarantine site got everyone infected. For seven years the government sent uninfected to isolation where they got infected and died.
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