Returning to England from France, our good doctor is placed in quarantine, which gives him plenty of time to think about the useless and semi-useless government responses to the Red Chinese pandemic.

It is always better for a government to do everything possible, even if useless, than to do nothing, even if the results are no worse. It follows from all these considerations that to impose a quarantine was politically all but inevitable because the object of government is not to save lives but to save itself.