Transnational Quarantine Rhetorics: Public Mobilization in SARS and in H1N1 Flu

Abstract

This essay examines how Chinese governments, local communities, and overseas Chinese in North America responded to the perceived health risks of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and H1N1 flu through the use of public and participatory rhetoric about risk and quarantines. Focusing on modes of security and quarantine practices, I examine how globalization and the social crises surrounding SARS and H1N1 flu operated to regulate differently certain bodies and areas. I identify three types of quarantines (mandatory, voluntary, and coerced) and conduct a transnational comparative analysis to investigate the relationships among quarantines, rhetoric, and public communication. I argue that health authorities must openly acknowledge the legitimacy of public input and actively seek public support regarding health crises. Only by collaborating with concerned communities and citizens and by providing careful guidance for public participation can health institutions ensure the efficacy of quarantine orders during emerging epidemics.

Don’t be the “Fifth Guy”: Risk, Responsibility, and the Rhetoric of Handwashing Campaigns

“…Endnotes 1 For the full text of President Obama's remarks, see BTranscript: President Obama's 100th-day press briefing^(2009). 2 See, for example, Keränen (2011); Angeli (2012); Ding (2014a;. 3 Keränen also stresses a common interest in the formation of publics, not just through the Bofficial texts of biomedicine,^but also through the practices they adopt in response to these texts (2014,104).…”

“…However, as Keränen (2014b) explains in the Health Humanities Reader, Ba rhetorical perspective focuses on how specific symbolic patterns structure meaning and action^in health and public-health contexts (37). Writing for this journal, for example, Ding (2014b) stresses the economic and sociocultural effects of media portrayals of Bat risk^populations during severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). 4 My essay contributes to this scholarship with an account of how messaging that seeks to engage publics in outbreak management shapes their perceptions of responsibility and risk, not to mention of public health.…”

Access, oppression, and social (in)justice in epidemic control: Race, profession, and communication in SARS outbreaks in Canada and Singapore

“…One of us (Ding, 2013;2014a;2014b;Ding & Pitts, 2013;Zhang & Ding, 2013) has been examining issues of risk communication, risk management, and public participation in global epidemics such as SARS, H1N1 flu, and HIV/AIDS. One little explored area in rhetoric of epidemics deals with power dynamics, access, social justice, and negotiations between authorities and various publics to mitigate impacts brought by epidemic control measures.…”

“…While it relied on police and contract security companies to carry out its quarantine orders, it encouraged individual citizens to comply with quarantine policies through the use of rhetoric of nationalism. Singapore did not fully mobilize its civic-based networks in the implementation of quarantine orders, as was achieved in Mainland China through the active involvement of neighborhood committees and other grassroots organizations (Ding, 2013;Ding, 2014a). Civic infrastructure seems to have played a minimal role in Canada's battle against SARS, and only in a retrospective manner, when various professional nurse organizations started to protest against the lack of appropriate protection of and compensation for nurses and other health professionals.…”

Does Screening Keep Ebola Out of USA?

“…Alternatively, voluntary quarantines are a potential measurement. In China, during 2003 SARS outbreak, the people from affected provinces were self-quarantine during the incubation period when they come back to hometown [5].…”