Countries Cordon off Ebola-Racked Area

choi

Donald G McNeil Jr, Using a Tactic Unseen for Centuries, Countries Cordon off Ebola-Racked Area. New York Times, Aug 13, 2014.
www.nytimes.com/2014/08/13/scien ... a-racked-areas.html

first two paragraphs:

“The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is so out of control that governments there have revived a disease-fighting tactic not used in nearly a century: the ‘cordon sanitaire,’ in which a line is drawn around the infected area and no one is allowed out.

“Cordons, common in the medieval era of the Black Death, have not been seen since the border between Poland and Russia was closed in 1918 to stop typhus from spreading west. They have the potential to become brutal and inhumane. Centuries ago, in their most extreme form, everyone within the boundaries was left to die or survive, until the outbreak ended.

My comment:
(a) There is no need to read the rest.
(b) Taiwan used the tactic in 2003 to fight Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), suddenly blockading hospitals and forbidding ins and outs of personnel but not goods. Workers, patients and visitors alike were confined for weeks on end. The quarantine seemed primitive to me. US did not do the same for their SARS patients..  

(c) cordon sanitaire
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordon_sanitaire

French English dictionary
(i) cordon (n; Old French, literally: a little cord, from corde cord)
www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/cordon
(ii) sanitaire (adjective masculine and feminine): “sanitary”
sanitaireen.wiktionary.org/wiki/sanitaire