WHERE WOULD BIOTERRORISM VICTIMS BE QUARANTINED?
By Carol M. Ostrom, Seattle Times staff reporter The state’s plan to deal with bioterrorism details the powers of local health officers to quarantine victims of an attack, but fails to answer a critical question: Where would all those people go? Nowhere in the proposed new rules — issued by the state Board of Health on the first anniversary of Sept. 11 — or in existing law does it say how a local health officer would go about confiscating a building, such as a hospital, hotel or other business to house those with a dangerously contagious disease. And after nearly a year of discussions, no local hospital has agreed to be designated as the place where large numbers of infectious patients could be isolated, despite the guideline from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that local planners designate such a facility before it is needed. Dr. Alonzo Plough, head of Public Health — Seattle & King County, says hospital CEOs don’t doubt that local health officers have
