The Harvard School of Public Health just released some national Avian Flu polling results, conducted as part of the HSPH’s Project on the Public and Biological Security. There’s some interesting data in there, including the expected general level of unease about the disease:

More than half of Americans (57%) report that they are concerned about the potential spread of bird flu in the United States. However, only 15% are very concerned at the moment. A higher proportion of African Americans report that they are concerned about this than whites (70% versus 54%). Similarly, the majority of Americans are not currently concerned that they or a family member will get avian flu within the next twelve months; only one in five (21%) people are worried about this possibility. Six in ten people are concerned about a pandemic outbreak of avian flu, that is, an outbreak in many countries (62%), but only 20% are very concerned.

But check out these stunning figures regarding quarantine:

Most Americans are supportive of quarantine measures. Ninety-six percent of respondents said that they would agree to be quarantined for two to three weeks if they had avian flu. Over four out of five people said that they would also agree to be quarantined even if they might have the disease (83%).

So, four out of five Americans would submit to quarantine even if only suspected of having the disease. Perhaps those numbers would drop if the government decided, as they once did, that the most ideal quarantine site was an isolated island prison—and that the quarantine was meant to be permanent.

The H5N1 Avian Flu virus in Turkey has infected at least 14 people and killed at least two children (and probably a third, whose body was buried before testing). These are the first human cases to be reported outside of Southeast Asia and China.

The good news: So far there’s been no evidence of human-to-human transmission of the virus reported. Nearly all cases were in people who were in close contact to dead or diseased poultry, health officials have said. If the virus adapts to spread easily person to person, that’s when a pandemic could start.

The bad news: The world is now closer to another flu pandemic than at any other time since 1968, according to the World Health Organization.

Another round of radio interviews today, and in every instance people wanted to talk about quarantine—how it destroyed lives 140 years ago in the colony, and whether it might happen again today, with Avian Flu. You’d like to think that governments learn from past errors, though that’s often not the case. One sad example: during the early days of the AIDS epidemic, politicians proposed making Kalaupapa an AIDS colony.

Last November, the Department of Health and Human Services announced the national Pandemic Influenza Plan. The document says that a variety of disease-containment strategies on a state and local level may be used in case of a pandemic. Measures range from community-wide, enforced quarantine to less restrictive actions, including asking people to stay home from work or school to help slow disease spread, restrictions on gatherings, and cancellation of public events.

Since influenza is on the list of federally quarantinable diseases–a list that used to include leprosy–the HHS secretary can make and enforce regulations to prevent the spread of flu from foreign countries into the United States or between states. HHS can also aid local jurisdictions in enforcing their quarantines. Here’s a snippet from the HHS’s “Key Pandemic Response Components and Legal Authorities”:

Individuals may be denied admission to the U.S. if thought to have a communicable disease of public health significance, as defined in CDC regulations. Individuals also may be isolated or quarantined by the Federal Government, or restricted from moving within or between states, if thought to have been exposed to or to be a source of infections to others of a communicable disease listed in an executive order signed by the President.

The specific details of what kind of quarantine would be implemented—if any—and how it would be enforced during flu pandemic have not been announced. Last fall, however, President Bush suggested using the military to control people’s movements during an avian flu outbreak.

This afternoon I did an in-studio interview with Leonard Lopate, at WNYC. (The NPR station in Manhattan.) What surprised me was the degree to which Leonard was interested in the possible parallels between the government response to leprosy 140 years ago, and the current administration’s potential reaction to an Avian Flu pandemic. As it happens, that’s the very subject of my piece, “If The Flu Becomes a Crime”, in the current Men’s Health.