Cordon sanitaire (medicine)

The term is also often used metaphorically, in English, to refer to attempts to prevent the spread of an ideology deemed unwanted or dangerous,[2] such as the containment policy adopted by George F. Kennan against the Soviet Union (see cordon sanitaire in politics).

[3][4] A cordon sanitaire is generally created around an area experiencing an epidemic or an outbreak of infectious disease, or along the border between two nations.

[5] Traditionally, the line around a cordon sanitaire was quite physical; a fence or wall was built, armed troops patrolled, and inside, inhabitants were left to battle the affliction without help.

In some cases, a "reverse cordon sanitaire" (also known as protective sequestration) may be imposed on healthy communities that are attempting to keep an infection from being introduced.

Public health specialists have included cordon sanitaire along with quarantine and medical isolation as "nonpharmaceutical interventions" designed to prevent the transmission of microbial pathogens through social distancing.

A loosely enforced cordon sanitaire during a cholera epidemic in Romania , 1911
Map of the cordon sanitaire around Porto during an outbreak of the bubonic plague in 1899.
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in Kazakhstan , two cities (the only places which had infections at the time) were subdivided into zones, with roadblocks between them, and movement heavily restricted. 2020.