My quarantine hell.

[Aloha_Shooter]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/v...ly-to-succeed/

While the Supreme Court has long held quarantines to be constitutional, it has not ruled directly on the scope of permissible quarantines. However, in the famous case of Jacobson v. Massachusetts, the Court did uphold a blanket mandatory vaccination law, under which resisters were put in jail. The principle here is the same as with quarantine – that one’s normal rights to bodily integrity are suspended by a general and serious public need, especially of an epidemiological variety.

One case upholding a quarantine has facts that look strikingly like Hickox’s. In U.S. ex rel Siegel v. Shinnick, 219 F.Supp. 789 (E.D. NY 1963), the plaintiff was confined for 14 days on her return from a “smallpox infected area” abroad, despite a lack of any evidence of direct exposure or symptoms. The court upheld the action, noting:

[ The ] judgment required is that of a public health officer and not of a lawyer used to insist on positive evidence to support action; their task is to measure risk to the public and to seek for what can reassure and, not finding it, to proceed reasonably to make the public health secure. They deal in a terrible context and the consequences of mistaken indulgence can be irretrievably tragic. To supercede their judgment there must be a reliable showing of error.

[hollohas]

I'm aware of past case law and court rulings regarding quarantine and know it's "legal". But most people on this board disagree with at least a couple of the court's "it's constitutional" rulings and this is one I disagree with. IMO, the fundamentals of liberty and freedom do not allow the government to detain citizens that "might" get others sick.

Edited to add...I do believe the fedgov can refuse to let dangerous persons across the border including citizens. This gal should have been refused entry unless she agreed to be quarantined. But allowing her in and then forcing quarantine after the fact? I don't agree...

[sellersm]

I just don't believe that this will end well. When you give the gubment an inch...

[Aloha_Shooter]

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. As has been said, "the Constitution is not a suicide pact." Someone else's freedom to travel is not absolute, especially when it poses a genuine risk to other citizens' rights to life. The risk that she could be asymptomatic and test negative and still be infected was demonstrated with Dr. Spencer who was asymptomatic when he traveled and then confirmed positive after he had gone bowling and rode the subway.

Quarantine (as opposed to isolation) is a reasonable temporary restriction of liberties on a limited population definable by objective criteria. Stupid bleeding heart redhead does NOT have an absolute right to expose others to a risk she accepted in the face of the current disease parameters. I don't have an issue with the recent solution of having her go home via private transport as long as I'm not having to pay for her stupidity or stubbornness but what Christie and Cuomo were dealing with was trying to prevent pandemic.

ADD:

[ a ] strict observance of the written law is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to the written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the ends to the means.

[Irving]

While I suppose it's possible for there to be asymptomatic human carriers of Ebola, it's probably not very likely.

I'd be far more concerned that the disease might get a foot hold in a non-human carrier species like dogs, cats, mice, etc.

If that happens, then it's possible we'd never be rid of it, because there would be a continuous reservoir of the disease out in the wild.

A few of the cases in prior outbreaks were apparently determined to be asymptomatic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ebola_outbreaks

[spqrzilla]

The power of states to quarantine people with communicable disease has been established in US and British common law for centuries. There is no Constitutional Right that is violated by such quarantine.

[tim-adams]

The power of states to quarantine people with communicable disease has been established in US and British common law for centuries. There is no Constitutional Right that is violated by such quarantine.

yeah its been understood for a long time, that quarantine for the good of the public is a government power.

[Irving]

Can the States quarantine soldiers at my home during peace time?

[davsel]

Turns out, she works for the CDC, not docs without borders as reported.
As usual, it's all politics.

Meanwhile, soldiers will all be quarantined after being forced to visit lovely Africa.

[hollohas]

Something I need to get straight because I have read conflicting stories.

Was this nurse forced into quarantine after she was already home or was it upon her arrival that she was ushered into quarantine?

For me this is an important distinction. If they came and picked her up at her home without her showing symptoms, I have a problem with that. But if they sent her into quarantine as a condition of gaining entry back into the states then cool.