scrubbedexpat099

To be fair I have seen many if it saves one life threads on here.

scrubbedexpat091

I know it happened, my reply was in reference about what would happen if there was a need to quarantine a couple thousand people on a cruise and if there was sufficient space.

As far as I know they did not quarantine the entire ship in this case.

Michael

White House Pressures States to Reverse Mandatory Ebola Quarantine Orders

At the same time, the first person to be forced into isolation under the new protocols, Kaci Hickox, a nurse returning from Sierra Leone, planned to mount a legal challenge to the quarantine order. Despite having no symptoms, she has been kept under quarantine at a hospital in New Jersey. On Sunday, she spoke to CNN about the way she has been treated, describing it as “inhumane.”

I wonder how long that will last since the states are imposing "forced confinement" and likely even if the courts allow that, the states will likely have to pay for the cost of the confinement. After the first billion or so dollars, I suspect the governors will start to use some common sense. If the courts don't allow it, they will likely have to pay several billion dollars to settle civil lawsuits.

scrubbedexpat099

Interesting more for the States rights issue. Makes you wonder what will happen when the POTUS switches over.

Michael

Nothing changes except which laws each party wants for state rights. Republicans claim to be for state rights but had a ban at the federal level for abortion before the supreme court overturned that and had the defense of marriage act before states ignored the law and was upheld by the supreme court. They also think that the federal government should have the exclusive power to ban the use of drugs in all states. They also want states rights for the Keystone pipeline but if a state opposes it, they feel the federal government has the right to overrule the state.

scrubbedexpat099

So they are both at it....

Michael

Duh.

johnnybrown532

I notice no one has spoken of what would happen if a person attempts to escape from or resist going into quarantine, would they prosecute would they shoot to kill? Why can't obama knock this on the head with his executive powers if he is against it?

Michael

Nothing is ever that easy when there is a disagreement between the federal and a state government. Executive orders are primarily used to manage the way federal departments are run. For example, Obama issued an executive order for the Dream Act. No law was changed but just that the government won't deport certain individuals.

Clinton signed an executive order covering all veterans for VA health insurance, George Bush signed an executive order that put it back to the way it was (only poor veterans) before Clinton's order, and Obama signed an executive order to cover most but not all veterans. Since the executive order required money to pay for the services, the chambers of congress had to pass a funding bill to cover the costs and if they didn't, the order will still stand but services to each individual member will likely be rationed. In that case, the republicans funded the program since they want the support of military personnel.

Michael

There was another executive order that Obama signed that irked the republicans. Although the republicans opposed Obamacare 100%, Obama signed an executive order that delayed when businesses had to be ACA compliant since businesses asked for the delay which should have pleased the republicans. However then republicans complained that Obama didn't have the power to delay implementation and some even called for his impeachment.

Michael

According to the CNBC, since the quarantine went into effect on Friday, only one nurse has been quarantined but it is estimated an average 150 people per day return to the US from the Ebola infected area of West Africa. Nobody seems to know why there is only one case in quarantine three days after the quarantine went into effect.

Are people lying when they arrive in the US? Are states not enforcing the quarantine due to the high cost of the quarantine? Is there not enough hospital rooms for all the people that need to be quarantined? Are people not returning to the US because of the quarantine? Are people flying to airports that don't require the quarantine? Are people flying to Canada and crossing the border by train or car?

When governments do something stupid, unintended consequences always occur. An estimated 450 people seem to have disappeared and nobody seems to know where they are.

johnnybrown532

A ban people from West Africa would probably work better or deporting non american citizens infected with the virus as opposed to quarantine which would be very costly and hospitals would have no hope of recovering those costs from poor people in West Africa.

Pulaski

While I don't agree with much of Michael's analysis, I am fairly certain that putting an infectious ebola victim on a plane with 400 +/- other people for a 8-10 hour flight is only going to make the spread of the ebola epidemic massively worse!

Michael

The quarantine for anyone is now in place. If there are 150 Americans returning daily, that is 3150 hospital rooms constantly in use. If insurance companies pay, the cost will be passed on to other policy holder's premiums to pay for the quarantine and if the government pays, the cost will be passed on to taxpayers. If they deport non Americans, a chartered plane with medical personnel (about 20 were required for each American that was transported to the US) would have to be paid by someone.

Since we apparently don't know where approximately 450 Americans are, why do you think we will be able to determine if a foreigner has come from the infected area if we had a ban on foreigners coming from the infected area? If Americans can seem to get around the quarantine, I'm sure that foreigners will likely get around the ban and no one will know that they were in West Africa. That is what usually happens when bans or quarantines are done for political reasons.

I suppose TSA could triple it's staff and it would take foreigners coming to the US much longer to get through CBP but some will always get through whether it is via Canada or through European countries. How about Europeans? Should the US strictly question Europeans when they enter the US to determine if they were in West Africa?

Giantaxe

Indeed. Quarantining returning health workers is just going to discourage them from going to help in West Africa in the first place. That is completely contrary to the need to contain this epidemic at its source.