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Webcams to Enforce Singapore Quarantine 436

Posted by CmdrTaco from the now-thats-just-creapy dept.
magarity writes "Singapore has hired a private security firm to install internet connected webcams in homes of persons quarantined for SARS in order to watch them to see if they go out. They are considering adding electronic wristbands as well. 9 of the 490 persons have broken the quarantine despite a fine of 10,000 singapore dollars ($5,621US). Just over 100 people worldwide have died from SARS so far."
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Webcams to Enforce Singapore Quarantine More

Webcams to Enforce Singapore Quarantine

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  • "It was just the cold!"

    Do you dream of the dark man, too?

    • Re:Captain Tripps... (Score:3, Informative)

      by Kredal ( 566494 )
      This isn't off topic.. mods on crack. (:

      Captain Tripps is what they called the killer disease in The Stand... and the Dark Man, aka Randall Flagg, is the bad guy in the book.
  • ... and in reality is worn about the neck. It comes with a detonatable charge to sever the individual's neck should they attempt to go further than the 8' extension cord allows. Please hope they find an outlet in the bathroom

    Now, all dilbert joking aside, this is one disease that scares me... without a common vector identified.... we might all be in for it.
    • Hell that's not a bad idea as far as I'm concerned. These people are under quarrantine for a reason. I see no problem with shooting them if they refuse to comply. We know that people who have it can spread it. These 9 people are putting the lives of too many at risk.
      • That may be a bit extreme. However the news seems to be getting worse as they find out more about it. Perhaps they need something more like a lockdown facility, but that would be like jailing everybody. It's a lose/lose situation until this thing is all figured out.

      • +1, spooky (Score:3, Insightful)

        by namespan ( 225296 )
        Hell that's not a bad idea as far as I'm concerned. These people are under quarrantine for a reason. I see no problem with shooting them if they refuse to comply. We know that people who have it can spread it. These 9 people are putting the lives of too many at risk.

        You're not sufficiently paranoid. OK, maybe you are, in a sort of Howard Huges microbial way, but if you'll turn your creative anxieties a different direction for a moment -- to the powers of the state -- maybe you'll understand why death pena
    • They did identify a common vector. Cockroaches.

    • SARS fears.. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Havokmon ( 89874 )
      Now, all dilbert joking aside, this is one disease that scares me... without a common vector identified.... we might all be in for it.

      No kidding. This thing is being reported as the kiss of death. This is the first time I've seen ANYTHING like the following in ANY news report:
      Around two-thirds of people diagnosed with SARS in Singapore have recovered.

      I wish someone would have said that earlier. It's the last line in the linked article, and it almost seems like an afterthought.
      Why is it just l

  • x10 camera! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Limburgher ( 523006 ) on Thursday April 10, 2003 @03:17PM (#5704880) Homepage Journal
    Mount inside doctors office! Spy on babysitter, kids, neighbors! Stops SARS!

    Failing that, meet in in Boulder. Mother Abigail said that The Dark Man is gathering his own on the other side of the mountains. . .

  • Click here! (Score:4, Funny)

    by dr_dank ( 472072 ) on Thursday April 10, 2003 @03:18PM (#5704890) Homepage Journal
    The hottest sluts with mysterious respiratory diseases are waiting to chat with YOU!
  • Why are we quarantining people over something with a 4% mortality rate? [thanks google]

    We don't put electronic trackers on people with measles. Yet more government knee-jerk reactions....

    • Re:What's the big deal? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by EnderWiggnz ( 39214 ) on Thursday April 10, 2003 @03:21PM (#5704917)
      hey dickhead - if it truly has a 4% mortality rate, that will kill 1/25 people.

      thats at least one student in a highschool class.

      at least one person in your extended family.

      it does need to be quarantined, or we are all fscked.
      • Correction: One person out of twenty-five will be fscked.

      • Re:What's the big deal? (Score:3, Informative)

        by Azghoul ( 25786 )
        You're pretty silly to be calling someone else names when you don't understand the statistics of disease.

        What the parent poster hinted at, and you completely missed, is that measles, among a number of other diseases, have higher mortality rates than just 4%.

        Google for it (something the parent poster also mentioned).
        • Is that there is a vaccine for measles and people are routinely vaccinated against it.

          Same for polio and many of the other worst nasties. Same for smallpox before it was considered near-extinct to the point where it wasn't a threat. (Damn the shitty security at Russia's storage facility...)

        • Re:What's the big deal? (Score:3, Informative)

          by akmed ( 33761 )
          Did you bother checking out that 4% number you mention? I did. It's crap. http://www.cdc.gov/travel/diseases/measles.htm [cdc.gov]

          2 deaths per thousand cases does not make 4%. It makes 0.2%. That's a very different number. You're pretty silly to be correcting someone when you're willing to take one person's blind assertion over another's without any validation.


      • That's right - Influenza killed 63,730 people in the US in 1999, according to the CDC. Flu has a mortality rate of around 1.5%.

        If you want to make a *very* rough extrapolation of the data, assuming that SARS is about as virulent and becomes as prevelent as influenza, you might expect it to kill *at least* 130,000 people in the US per year. Bear in mind that the widespread use of an influenza vaccine reduces 'flu deaths considerably... we don't yet have a vaccine for SARS.

        That would conservatively put SARS

    • Why are we quarantining people over something with a 4% mortality rate?

      Because it's Big! and Scary! and it has a catchy name!

    • Re:What's the big deal? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Bloodshot ( 8999 ) on Thursday April 10, 2003 @03:25PM (#5704963) Homepage
      It's only 4% because people are acting quickly to try and stop it from spreading. I live and work around Toronto (which is one of the places where SARS has shown up with a vengence in Canada), and believe me, it's a big freakin' deal. I had to go the doctor for treatment of strep throat and there was a form I had to fill out about SARS and every medical person there had a filter mask on and wouldn't go NEAR you until they determined you weren't a SARS risk.

      Like some others have said, how would YOU feel if someone you knew was one of those 4%. I think your knee would jerk pretty high.
    • I had the exact same thought. However, I think it has more to do with the fact that it's brand new, people don't know (or didn't, I don't know the current state) what it is, and it has killed a few people.

      I think the excitement will die down in a little while... I don't know that it's "government" knee-jerk as much as it is human fear of the unknown.

    • Re:What's the big deal? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Thursday April 10, 2003 @03:28PM (#5705000)
      Why are we quarantining people over something with a 4% mortality rate?

      The 4% mortality rate is before all of the hospitals are full and before the world's supply of available respirators is exhausted. If 1,000,000 people in one country catch this, things could be different.

      I'm just hoping that this virus mellows out a little bit as it goes through multiple generations in humans, as some viruses have been known to do. That might be the only way it will slow down.

    • 4% is a damn high mortality rate, especially considering we don't know how it's spread. And it could easily climb. Did you look up the remission/cure rate too? AFAIK, noone has 'got over' SARS.

    • Doesn't matter, they're ignoring the quarantine... (Score:5, Informative)

      by kiwimate ( 458274 ) on Thursday April 10, 2003 @03:29PM (#5705019) Journal
      ...in Toronto [www.cbc.ca], causing Ontario public health officials to order 197 people into isolation.

      And, by the way, it's now been discovered to be a relative [yahoo.com] of one of the many viruses that cause the common cold. But that kind of got overshadowed by all the war news.

      As did the anti-war protest database [yahoo.com] being kept by the NYPD. But ignore this, it's off topic.

    • Re:What's the big deal? (Score:5, Informative)

      by whm ( 67844 ) on Thursday April 10, 2003 @03:31PM (#5705036)
      Perhaps because Measles has a mortality rate of only about 0.2%? CDC Reference [cdc.gov]. There is also a vaccine for measles (which I'm sure contributes to the mortality rate listed on that page)

      With SARS we're also dealing with something we don't entirely understand yet. I'm personally impressed with how serious it's being treated. If anything, it helps us practice in case of a more significant situation.

      Better safe than sorry, you know?

    • Why are we quarantining people over something with a 4% mortality rate?

      It's too early to state a mortality rate for SARS. Most of the people who have the syndrome were diagnosed much more recently than the first batch of victims, and we don't know how many of the current patients will survive. Simply looking at the number of people who have already died compared to the number of current cases (like some reporters have tried) does not give you reliable statistics in this case.

      Also, the seriousness of a

    • Flu Pandemic of 1918 - 3 % mortality. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MightyTribble ( 126109 ) on Thursday April 10, 2003 @03:37PM (#5705097)
      ...which killed upwards of 20 MILLION people, had a mortality rate of 3%.

      SARS seems to be *at least* as transmissible as the 1918 flu was.

      That's why.
      • The parallels of the nature of SARS and the 1918 flu are a little scary too. Although the virus that causes SARS is not believed to be a flu virus, the 1918 flu was distinctly different than other flus. The 1918 flu virus also caused awful pneumonia where the victums suffocated. The 1918 flu affected people between 20 and 40 and SARS is killing people at mid age. The 1918 flu started in China and SARS started in China. Here's the scariest part. In 1918 the flu spread around the world without the aid o
        • Huh, the 1918 flu started in China? I wonder why it is often called the "Spanish" flu?

          Google here I come ...

          #4 on the hit chart [essortment.com]-

          The Spanish Flu actually originated in Tibet in 1917. As the armies of various nations moved across the continents the flu spread with them. Before long cases were showing up in Europe. When it hit France, it changed its character, becoming malignant as it was contracted by African soldiers who had been recruited into the French army. After establishing a stronghold in Fr

    • We have a vaccien for measles.
    • You're completely missing the point. Measels are understood, can be treated and even vaccinated against. They don't spread easily. This desease has infected tons of hospital staff and even killed WHO employees. These are people that are used to dealing with sick people, and still they are getting sick. That's a problem. It's not just a matter of the mortality rate, but also how infectious it is. And this one seems to be quite easily transmitted. If a single person with SARS goes in supermarket and sneezes n

  • reality TV? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by AbdullahHaydar ( 147260 ) on Thursday April 10, 2003 @03:19PM (#5704903) Homepage
    So, who wants to take bets on how soon people will hack into these government quarantine webcams and then blackmail people to keep their private lives from being publicly displayed?

  • This is Singapore... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sco08y ( 615665 ) on Thursday April 10, 2003 @03:20PM (#5704908)
    Before you start on about 1984, this is happening in Singapore, not the US.

    And to head off the inevitable Ashcroft / Patriot Act recriminations, please offer actual *proof* of claims that our civil liberties are being eroded.
    • Don't forget that even though Singapore is wealty, it is still not a democracy.

    • Re:This is Singapore... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by thelexx ( 237096 ) on Thursday April 10, 2003 @03:42PM (#5705142)
      Since you brought it up and apparently missed yesterday's thread with FIFTEEN HUNDRED FSCKING MESSAGES on why Ashcroft/Patriot are bad, here's my favorite:

      Re:Not A Joke (Score:5, Informative)
      by bricriu (184334) on Wednesday April 09, @03:39PM (#5695030)
      (http://slashdot.org/)
      You can be detained, without being charged, indefinitely, having been investigated under a sealed warrant, an unsigned warrant, or no warrant at all, and then be denied access to a lawyer.

      And that is un-American. Period.

      • Your favorite huh?

        Are you quite sure that "bricriu" is a lawyer? Are you quite sure he has actually read the law? Did he provide a citation or proof of his statement? Here, maybe I should try something to change your mind:

        Without the Patriot Act, 45% of people in the U.S. will die by 2010.

        There, did you believe that? Have I changed your mind by making a completely unsubstantiated statement?

        • Re:This is Singapore... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by thelexx ( 237096 ) on Thursday April 10, 2003 @04:16PM (#5705455)
          I'm quite sure it was my favorite because it was concise. Are you quite sure he is not a lawyer? Are you quite sure he has not read the law? And realize that everything the original poster of that message said has already happened to people. No, it isn't widespread. That doesn't make it right.

    • And you don't think that people exposed to SARS in the US are being quarantined? You don't think US public health officials would seek legal action against someone who knowingly violated their quarantine. Damm right they would, and they should. This isn't a question of civil liberties, this is a question of public health.

      While you were busy watching GulfWar II on CNN, SARS was spreading around the globe. The fact that it hasn't spread into the general population in the states is because of the CDC's con

    • Re:This is Singapore... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Zoop ( 59907 )
      Singapore is to authoritarianism as Sweden is to Socialism. It makes it look very nice and attractive and proves that it's a viable way to run a country. Singapore is Ashcroftism taken to a whole new level. Before you dismiss it, you have to deal with Singapore.

      That being said, there's much to criticize in either example, and of course just because one place gets it right; a) doesn't mean it will work everywhere, and b) doesn't mean you would personally want that offal where you live.

      NB, I am not saying t

  • One day a killer one will come along... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by weave ( 48069 ) on Thursday April 10, 2003 @03:21PM (#5704918) Journal
    Humans can be so stupid. Sometimes I think maybe evolution shouldn't just wipe us all out and start over again. In a few million years, who'll care that the human race had a forced reboot in the 21st Century?

    Looks like we may get lucky this time -- hopefully. If a real killer virus hits, we're all doomed. :(

  • Not quite as bad as summary makes it sound.... (Score:5, Informative)

    by ERJ ( 600451 ) on Thursday April 10, 2003 @03:22PM (#5704926)
    The people will be called randomly during the day and asked to turn on the camera to confirm that they are really there. The camera will not always be on. Just an extra precaution to make sure people don't just have someone else answer their phone.

  • Next big reality series is on it's way.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by ChaseTec ( 447725 ) <chase@osdev.org> on Thursday April 10, 2003 @03:24PM (#5704951) Homepage
    This is the story of 490 strangers forced to live in a quarantine block together and find out what happens when people stop being polite and start getting SARS...

  • If they're using Microsoft Webcams... (Score:5, Funny)

    by GeneralEmergency ( 240687 ) on Thursday April 10, 2003 @03:24PM (#5704954) Journal

    ...then MS's ad campain slogan of "Where Do you Want to Go Today?" must really be stinging right about now.

  • SARS (Score:5, Informative)

    by philovivero ( 321158 ) on Thursday April 10, 2003 @03:24PM (#5704956) Homepage Journal
    For those, like me, who didn't know a whole lot about SARS, someone typed up a real nice Wikipedia entry [wikipedia.org] on SARS, including a nice table of diagnosed cases per country.

  • It's not that BAD (Score:4, Informative)

    by jeeryg_flashaccess ( 456261 ) on Thursday April 10, 2003 @03:24PM (#5704958) Homepage Journal
    A 60 minutes segment yesterday reminded views that SARS is far less dangerous than Malaria.

    Malaria kills almost 1 million world wide per year.

    It is also important to mention that SARS could just be a wake up call, one which prods the public to pursue these deadly diseases. If anything, SARS will establish guidelines to prevent future disease outbreaks.

    http://www.cbsnews. com/stories/1998/08/01/48hours/main22761.shtml

    • Re:It's not that BAD (Score:5, Insightful)

      by robbo ( 4388 ) <slashdotNO@SPAMsimra.net> on Thursday April 10, 2003 @03:41PM (#5705139)
      Yes, it is that bad. Malaria isn't contagious. If SARS isn't contained, then a lot more than a million people could die. Consider what could happen if SARS spread to Africa, where a significant percentage of the population is infected with an immune-suppressing virus (HIV).
    • Yeah, but is Malaria transmitted from person-to-person, through the air?

      IIRC, it's transmitted by mosquitos.

      AFAIK, if you don't live in a hot, swampy, infested area, you won't get malaria from someone sitting next to you on the metro. ANd that is a risk with SARS.
      • Let me elaborate on the parents post this way: SARS is only a big deal because it could potentially effect everyone, instead of just poor 3rd world countries who cannot afford the medicines to cure their illnesses. I mean come on, how many people die from influenza every year?
    • Or in this case, anti-sensationalistic which amounts to the same thing.

      How many people will be dead by the time this virus is a year old? If we don't jump on it now, how many people will die annually from it five years from now?

      How many people catch Malaria by sitting in the same room as someone else with Malaria?

      Drawing stats on this (six month old) disease and comparing it to something that's established in the population and is transmitted by a completely different (and known) vector is the ultimate n
    • Malaria kills almost 1 million world wide per year.

      Yes, and at current fatality rates then SARS should kill right around 240 million people if it becomes a pandemic.

      That's nearly the population of the US.

      The "far less dangerous" bit ignores communicability . Malaria is a non-issue unless you're near mosquitos. SARS appears to be an issue if you're near other humans.
    • Malaria requires a mosquito vector to spread. SARS does not. A CDC official recently said that SARS wasn't [soon] contained, everybody on earth will get it. Nobody is likely to have natural immunity because is it is a recombinant or (less likely) mutation of a coronavirus - thus a new organism.

      If it has an animal host, we are screwed. We either all get it, or we get immunization.

      If not, it may be able to cause it to burn out through quarantine and other infection control measures.

      One thing not shown in t

  • In Other News (Score:5, Funny)

    by jetkust ( 596906 ) on Thursday April 10, 2003 @03:28PM (#5705009)
    Law enforcement agencies all over America are in the process of laying off 85% of their police force in favor of 100 strategically placed web cams across the United States.

  • Dave, I'm seeing SARS (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Helpadingoatemybaby ( 629248 ) on Thursday April 10, 2003 @03:30PM (#5705025)
    SARS isn't the threat that we have to worry about. If it's true that Beijing has been concealing cases of this disease (and in one case supposedly driving a person into Hong Kong to die there) then with the growing density of population we'll see more of these cases from all over.

    This would mean, for example, that in a few years we may have airborne varient strains of other viruses. Now, should an airborne strain of some slow infection cycle be created (like HIV/AIDS, or a pneumonia with a very slow cycle), then most of the world will be infected before the first casualty occurs. Obviously this is fatal situation for mankind. It's not the quick diseases like ebola that we have to fear, it's the slow ones.

    Hope it doesn't happen, but with population densities growing I expect that it will.

    Comments?

  • Forced Confinement (Score:4, Interesting)

    by csguy314 ( 559705 ) on Thursday April 10, 2003 @03:32PM (#5705042) Homepage
    That's what they're doing here in Toronto. People that are refusing to obey the voluntary isolation are being forcibly confined. Some are also being changed by police.
    In fact one school and an office (HP in markham) have been closed because people refused to obey the voluntary isolation.
    I even have family that works in one of the hospitals downtown. There's a lot of FUD about SARS on the news, but I'm not worried. I don't know anyone who's sick and while there are a few new cases being announced, the spread isn't rapid. So I'll just keep reading /. uhh, I mean working.
  • The QRNTN [ideosphere.com] claim at the Foresight Exchange [ideosphere.com], predicting an enforced US quarantine of at least 500 individuals within the same metro area for the same disease by 2004, was created a couple of days before news of SARS hit the wires. It is currently trading at less than 40% but that could change if the US SARS data out of the Centers for Disease Control [cdc.gov] sustains the trends of the last couple of weeks which is to double every 7-8 days.

    Another SARS claim predicting SARS is a pandemic [ideosphere.com], will start trading this

  • From a Yahoo message board...

    "maybe if other countries start some sanitary guildlines the rest of the world wouldnt have to suffer cause some Asian dude for got to wash his hands, after dropping one on the floor."

    • Re:Clean up your countries (Score:4, Informative)

      by nochops ( 522181 ) on Thursday April 10, 2003 @03:53PM (#5705257)
      Evidently this is not your quote, but I wonder if the author has ever been to Singapore. It's one of the cleanest countries in the world. I know, I've been there, and many other SE Asian countries.

      Put it this way, they're so concerned about keeping the city clean, that even chewing gum is banned.

    • Re:Clean up your countries (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Noofus ( 114264 ) on Thursday April 10, 2003 @04:06PM (#5705370)
      Part of the problem is out over-reliance on anti-bacterial soaps|sponges|cuttingboard|etc.

      The more we 'sanitize' our society the more susceptible we all are when a big bad bug comes along. Personally, I keep myself clean and all, but I will not use anti-bacterial products, with the excpetions of neosporin when I cut myself. The minute amounts of bactieria, firuses, molds, etc that I probably ingest build my immune system.

      Its not a statistically good sampling, but of my friends that are anti-bacterial everything, and my friends that are more like me. The ones that dont use anti-bacterial products tend to get sick less often, and are sick for shorter durations than the people I know that are nuts about anti-bacterial products.

      So I think we need to watch out for these sanitary guidelines - too much is a bad thing.
  • Of course it makes sense to quarantine people who are ill with SARS. No one knows many hard facts about it yet, except that it can spread really fast and it can kill. Quarantine is perfectly logical at this stage. In my opinion, anyone who knowingly breaks quarantine and recklessly puts other people in danger should be treated as a criminal.
  • Since clearly few are bothering to read the article: Those quarantined "will be called at random intervals daily and requested to turn on the camera and present themselves in front of the camera to show their presence," the ministry said.

    Talk about pointless ways to use the technology. Clearly the wristband (or legband) would be better. Let me suggest one obvious flaw to this:

    Hmm..., I feel like going out and infecting a few thousand people with this deadly disease. If I do they might catch me and fine



  • I guess it saw "Singapore" near "Webcam" and just assumed the worst ;)

  • From a Usenet post on "poor man's nukes" [google.com]:

    Tularaemia

    Also known as rabbit fever, tularaemia is an infectious disease of wild animals that can be transmitted to humans. Symptoms include a high fever, aching and swollen glands. It can be treated with antibiotics. In general, tularemia is fatal in about 5 per cent of cases. But without treatment, the risk of death is more than 30 per cent with certain forms of the disease, such as the type that triggers atypical pneumonia. No vaccine is available.

    One wonders

  • in Singapore, chewing gum is still outlawed [pacific.net.sg].
  • I really don't know what to say. I am pretty much speechless. This website has the biggest collection of paranoid people I have ever seen. Although I kind of expected the 1984 -comments.

    I better stop reading this story, or I will lose all hope for humanity...
  • SPray orange dye that lasts 10 days on htier faces. Make it legal to beat the crap ot of anyone with an orange face.

    I have little sympathy for people who are unwilling to make a small self sacrifice to avoid killing 4% of the people they know.
  • So you call the phone company and cancel your account with them. Now how do they get that video back to headquarters?
  • In the Scenarios section of the January 1995 issue of wired magazine there was a story titled The Plague Years" [shmoozenet.com]

    One photograph speculated that wearing medical wear might become a fashion accessory. [stamen.com]

    Now medical gear has really become a fashion accessory. [smh.com.au]

  • You really should try the curry. Good curry in Singapore. Saddam would have got away with his shit if Iraq had curry that good. Everyone would be all like "Did you see what Saddam did today? Mmm... Man this is good curry... What were we talking about?"
  • The way things are being handled in Canada I found somewhat intresting. Apperantly it's on the honor system [canada.com], and if people break it, the government actually has to go to court to force them to stay home. I doubt people would get anywhere near that much civil rights here in the US if they came down with SARS, and they certainly wouldn't in Singapore.

    Also, why do they need web cams? Wouldn't a simple proximity detector work? It's a huge intrusion of privacy to actually view these poor sick people :(

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