The latest news about the coronavirus is sobering. Health officials in China’s Hubei province reported 14,840 new cases of coronavirus, most of them in Wuhan, the capital.
Province officials also said another 242 people had died, taking the total number of deaths in mainland China to 1,367 as of Feb. 13. These increases raise concerns about the true scale of the epidemic in China.
Coronavirus represents a group of viruses that can cause a range of symptoms including a runny nose, cough, sore throat and fever. Some are mild, such as the common cold, while others are more likely to lead to pneumonia.
The World Health Organization declared the outbreak a global public health emergency and the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services issued a similar warning for the U.S.
What are traditional public health measures available in the U.S. with the threat of a deadly outbreak? Isolation and quarantine are the methods by which public health officials stop the spread of disease.
According to the Department of Health and Humans Services, the president by executive order provides for the use of federal isolation and quarantine for communicable diseases, including cholera, diphtheria, tuberculosis, smallpox, yellow fever and Ebola among other potential pandemic diseases.
Isolation is used to separate ill people who have a communicable disease from those who are healthy. Quarantine is used to separate and restrict the movement of people who are well but may have been exposed to a communicable disease. This is ongoing with several cruise ships in Asia and other parts of the world.
Isolation and quarantine can have a significant impact on fundamental individual rights. They are not new public health remedies, dating as far back as 1902.
In addition to being medical functions, isolation and quarantine are also “police power” functions, derived from the right of the government to take action affecting individuals for the benefit of society. The authority for carrying out these functions has been delegated to the CDC.
All 50 states have laws to enforce the use of isolation and quarantine.
In fact, in many states the governor has the authority to order a “cordon sanitaire” which is the quarantining of an entire town or city.
The government attempts to balance the good of the community with individual liberty. In times of international crisis, there is a heightened need to zealously protect those individual rights.
Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter at @MatthewTMangino.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosas Press Gazette: MANGINO: Civil rights versus stopping a deadly virus