OK I lied to get you here. Sorry. It is SFW. What’s most interesting??
New multi-fill water balloon Kickstarter:
Bubonic Plague: China seals off 30,000 people
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That report seems all matter-of-fact and outlines a relatively satisfying response, but I can’t help thinking, since when was China transparent about this sort of thing? Is this indicative of a shift, or are we missing something here?
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Did you mean the quarantine of 30,000 people?
It reminded me of this quarantine, which happened in Edinburgh 400 odd years ago:
http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/lost-edinburgh-the-great-plague-of-1645-1-3351337
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Note the inclusion of the term ‘relatively’ and the context of China.
I was mostly referring to them just telling people about it.
Re the link, it was scary stuff indeed… I have no idea what it’s like in China where this is happening, but 30,000 does sound like a mean gamble.
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Yes - it’s cool that China is advertising. I suspect that with the international monitoring of disease, and the porous internet, it’d be impossible even for China to prevent word of Bubonic Plague getting out.
So better to be wise and show what “clever” steps you’re taking.
If they don’t control it well, it will obviously be extremely damaging, in terms of lives and reputation.
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I bet you could keep 30,000 people contained with enough water balloons.
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What a wild juxtaposition! (Also, clever marketing with the NSFW tag 
)
If I have to answer what is more interesting, I’ve got to go with B (China 'fessing up to crazy strong steps to isolate a potential pandemic).
But the one I’m more likely to take action on? Gotta go with A (Awesome water balloonage), I’m a KickStarter addict.
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I looked it up, and Yumen is located in northern China on the Silk Road close to the border with Mongolia. It’s a cold desert climate and gets warm and rainy during the summer. They probably have a lot of problems with infections when they get warm.
Because of the way plague is spread, the quarantine probably has less to do with keeping people contained in the areas, than keeping other humans out of harm’s way. Plague is spread by infected fleas or bites or scratches from infected animals - in this case, it was a basically a type of really big ground squirrel. They’ll probably spend the month killing a lot of rodents and fleas (and then checking the animals for infection) so that people can more safely travel in that area.
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Oh I completely agree - quarantining the town is essentially the right thing to do to prevent the germ travelling.
I just hope it’s done 21st century style, not mediaeval European.
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