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🩺 Disease and wound infection: make immunity win before restoring production
1. Triage before panic — ordinary disease is not a contagious outbreak
Open the Health tab and compare severity with immunity. That race is the problem to solve. With the exception of Scaria, ordinary RimWorld diseases do not spread from pawn to pawn, so do not dismantle your hospital just to “quarantine” healthy colonists.
| What you see | Priority | First move |
|---|---|---|
| Immunity is ahead and the condition is stable | Routine care | Keep the bed and tending available; do not send the pawn back to work early |
| Severity is catching immunity | High | Stop non-essential work and confirm a doctor, medicine and bed are available now |
| A dangerous infection on an arm, leg, or another treatable part | Surgery contingency | Check doctor, anaesthetic, operation risk and alternatives before time runs out |
2. In 60 seconds, assign the bed, doctor and medicine
- Put the patient in a usable medical bed: it must be reachable for both patient and doctor; check allowed areas, doors and hauling clutter.
- Move Bed rest and Doctor up: stop long-distance work, and do not let your reliable doctor disappear into cooking, construction or hauling.
- Allocate medicine by risk: do not burn the best medicine on every routine case; reserve scarce stock for a worsening trend, a critical pawn, or an infection losing its immunity race.
- Keep feeding and power alive: patients still need food. If care loses power, use Power emergency; if too many pawns in bed crush the kitchen, use Food emergency.
3. Wound infection: separate “keep tending” from “change the operation plan”
An infection is not merely a longer injury. Recheck the Health tab after tending: which line is faster, can care continue, and can the patient actually rest? If the infection is on a removable or replaceable part, surgery is a last contingency, not an automatic first reaction.
| Ask first | If the answer is no | Action now |
|---|---|---|
| Can immunity still catch up with tending and rest? | The gap keeps widening | Immediately assess a better doctor, medicine, or an operation |
| Can surgery be completed safely? | No doctor, anaesthetic, or stable patient | Build the conditions first; a low-confidence operation can create a second emergency |
| Can the colony run after losing that part? | Your only doctor, cook, or defender becomes disabled | Set up cover, food and defense before entering the operation window |
Exact operations, success chances and replacement parts belong to the live in-game panel; this page does not replace it.
4. Several sick pawns: save the line that saves everyone else
With several cases, doctors, beds and cooking capacity are usually the bottleneck, not isolation rooms. Sort by risk and role: give the dangerous trend the best doctor; keep backup coverage for cooking, power, firefighting and care; let lower-risk cases continue resting with routine treatment.
Hunger, pain and sleep loss can turn a medical emergency into a mental-break response; limit dangerous behavior first, then repair comfort and recreation.
5. End the emergency by trend, not by one successful tend
When immunity is clearly ahead and the condition is recovering, return pawns to work gradually. Restore doctor backup, hospital medicine and beds first; then restore harvesting and construction. Sending a newly stable pawn straight into long hauling can recreate the hunger, mood and infection pressure you just contained.
| Restore in this order | Check |
|---|---|
| Medical line | Medicine, medical beds, and at least one healthy doctor are available |
| Survival line | Food, temperature and power do not rely on one recovering pawn |
| Production line | Only then resume research, construction, remote gathering and optional surgery |
🔎 Version and source check
Scope: common base-game disease and wound infections in RimWorld 1.6; last checked 2026-09-19. Traits, age, implants, medicine, difficulty, DLC and mods can change the right choice. Use the live Health and operation panels as the final call.
Sources: RimWorld Wiki: Disease, Infection, and Health.