Question: what would you do if a new disease formed and was spreading rappidly?

Daniel Rhodes answered on 5 Jun 2018:

So I’m honestly not the best placed to answer this question. This would be a public health issue. Scientists in this area concentrate on trying to prevent disease and improve human health by affecting large scale things such as government policy.
But – if I were to have a go – I’d want to know how the disease was spreading. Is it water-borne, or is it spread by animals etc.? Then I would try to limit the spread, so in the case of a disease spread by animals, you would try to limit the movement of these animals and prevent human contact with them. Then you would want to understand where the disease came from – diseases rarely appear from nowhere, but instead develop from a similar related disease. Understanding the history of the disease could lead to clues for how to treat it.
If you want a concrete example of how situations like this can be handled – then google the SARS outbreak of 2002.