As Sawyer was placed in isolation, public health officials had to track down every single person who'd come into contact with him, from the flights he'd boarded to the Lagos airport and the private hospital where he went after landing.
Punishments came and went like any other fad in the outside world but favourite methods included writing essays, memorising chapters of the Bible, a paper-clip daisy chain wrapped around your head and then hooked to each cheek to force a smile, running laps around a driveway, pointless manual labour, isolation, public beatings, bread-and-water diets.
While academic researchers have the luxury to focus on single challenges in isolation, public influence platforms like PeerIndex have to address many scientific challenges at once, while also maintaining a viable business model.
The war taught her that you could not live your life in isolation from public events.
For decades, Chicago had been home to larger, more entrenched gangs, in part because they festered in the isolation of public housing.
The little versus the big, the peace of isolation against public riot, time brought to a halt against time racing frenetically forward, theatricality next to modesty.
A brilliantly staged last scene shows her in a simple shift going towards death, while Elizabeth is made up for private isolation and public consumption: white mask face; straitjacket bodice; scarlet hoops for her farthingale that look like entrails.
It was a measure of Mrs Gandhi's growing isolation from public opinion that she felt confident enough to hold a general election in March 1977 in the expectation of legitimising her autocracy with a popular mandate.
It's Tonia's isolation in public, the theatricalization of her different self through paint and dress, that encompasses so much of what makes the black in Western art incalculably lonely, unknowable, troubling, and, sometimes, beautiful, just like other people.
Its isolation from public opinion makes it vulnerable to nasty surprises such as the explosions of unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang.China's leaders have begun manoeuvring their favourites into senior positions in readiness for them to take power in 2012 when Mr Hu, it is assumed, steps down as party chief.
But with existing tools the vaccine, isolation, and public health intervention we can expect that, if we plan and prepare, we can stop that outbreak," he says.
