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Comment by tomjen3 | Hacker News Reader

Badly. We can't cut of international commerce, the world would starve. We can't cut of international travel, the world would starve and there would be a ton of riots.

If the outbreak is localized then we may have a change of putting a quarantine on the area, but I doubt it.

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The good news is that there's a pretty good capacity to move massive amounts of goods with very little human interaction.

The bad news is that there's a hell of a lot of human movement, and you'd have to shut down much of that, as well as isolate carriers and exposed individuals as quickly as possible. Often in places (such as the present African outbreak) in which infrastructure, governance, and resources are exceptionally limited. The task of effectively controling all vectors would be a very high challenge.

I'd say it would be an ugly time, all told.

On the other hand, international commerce is largely mechanized in the age of container and bulk shipping and happens without much human contact.

I would assume that all first world countries have stored food/medicine/oil/etc. for emergencies. At least Finland keeps enough for six months consumption (was 12 previously, but with the current economic troubles it was dropped to 6 a few months ago). Of course that wouldn't include all the luxuries, but enough to keep people alive and the important industries running. And I suppose there would still be trade with countries that are known to be safe.

That would be an incorrect assumption in regards to the existence of medical stockpiles in all first world countries.

For example the closest thing to a medical stockpile in the United States would be the current inventory on hand and what the public or private sector has stockpiled for its own limited audience.

Perhaps there are exceptions for certain medications, but requiring 6-12 month stockpiles of certain medications tastes of corporatism.

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