Should the CDC or local authorities make regulations concerning quarantine? The politically based decisions surrounding issues of quarantines in the US versus actual medical knowledge have brought question to light as the measures have impacted individual rights.
Leaders for the most part are acting to the public concerns rather than what is most beneficial to the public health. Decisions surrounding the Ebola crisis have brought public outcry by panic populations that worry that the federal government is not going far enough to protect them. Ebola previously known as Ebola hemorrhagic fever is a rare and deadly disease caused by infection with one of the Ebola virus strains. Ebola viruses are found in several
African countries and Ebola was first discovered in 1976. Ebola is spread through direct contact with blood and body fluids such as urine, saliva, vomit, sweat. The 2014 Ebola epidemic is the largest in history affecting many countries in West Africa. As of December
7,2014 there has been 17942 cases of ebola with 6488 dying from ebola. Some of the recent
US Ebola quarantine cases are the New York and New Jersey cases. Quarantine was adopted as an obligatory means of separating persons, animals, and goods that may have been exposed to a contagious disease. Quarantine has been one of the big strategies to diseasecontrol. The first organized use of this practice was during the plague of 13471352.
The New York case involved Dr. Spencer who recently returned from Guinea to the
United States where he recently returned from treating ebola patients. Spencer was checked by his physician but still was able to visit places going to restaurants and a bowling alley. He was tested positive for Ebola in the following hours. He wasn’t quarantined and could move freely around.
The other big case would be the New Jersey case. The case involved Kaci
Hickox, A nurse who returned from West Africa was quarantined at a hospital in New Jersey.
The quarantine policy was just a new instituted policy made by New York and New Jersey governors both of whom had larger political aspirations. Chris Christie, Governor of New
Jersey is possibly running for president soon and wanted to make people think he was more decisive and interested in the public health issues than the current president. The nurse impacted by these regulations quoted “This is an extreme that is really unacceptable, and I feel like my human rights have been violated”. Each state has different quarantine laws. The
US Constitution gives states the rule of how to approach health issues, the CDC only issues guidelines. Federal government has control over what happens concerning public health in airports and shipping ports. The guidelines stated by the Centers for disease control and prevention recommend that people at high risk of developing ebola voluntarily isolate themselves from others for 21 days in your own residences. A lot less strict than guidelines developed from New York and New Jersey governors which imposed mandatory 21 day quarantines on such people which were initially watched by officials in an indoor isolation tent.
Earlier examples of politically motivated quarantine practices included the treatment of immigrants during the cholera 1892 outbreaks in the US. Incoming immigrants from Eastern
European ships were not informed of such quarantine guidelines at the time. The Russian
Jewish immigrants coming from Europe were held in mandatory quarantine. The thing about state, local, and federal authorities all tried to assert control over logistics and time period of such quarantines. This 21 day period was not arrived at because of the medical knowledge of the day. In this way one of the most significant health measures of all time was delivered at by political figures. This example is important because it shows how these decisions were politicized even in America’s earliest history.
The treatment of these
