With the growing panic over the Ebola epidemic, now seems a fitting time to address the bioethical issue of quarantines. Quarantine, as you probably know, is the isolation of a sick patient in order to prevent them from spreading whatever disease or virus they may have. It is a very effective and straightforward strategy to combat the spread of infectious diseases, but it can often end up backfiring. In addition, the idea of quarantining individuals, especially in the United States, has clear ties to individual rights and liberties. While the idea may sound great in theory, it is much harder to implement and control in practice than it may seem.
One of the biggest problems when it comes to quarantining is actually diagnosing the patients with the disease. Many deadly, infectious disease share symptoms with common more ones and it can be almost impossible to correctly diagnose patients without more rigorous testing. This can lead to patients with minor diseases being targeted for quarantining, or to patients who actually do have the infectious disease going around undiagnosed for days or even weeks. Quarantining someone after they’ve already taken a flight or gone into work has almost no effect, as the patient has already come into contact with and potentially spread the disease to hundreds or thousands of people. Even if a group of patients is effectively quarantined, though, they still must receive treatment. This means healthcare workers interacting with the patients, which is yet another possible way for the disease to spread. It only takes one patient or doctor to violate the quarantine protocols for the entire system to be rendered useless.
Beyond the logistics, quarantines are a definite violation of individual rights. In a quarantine situation, the government seizes a person and takes away almost all of their freedoms; the quarantined individual isn’t free to go to their own house, go to work, see their loved ones, and sometimes is unable to communicate with the outside world at all. Thus, the government takes a huge risk by quarantining anyone, as the benefits of the isolation must outweigh the cons of the patient’s denied freedom. Additionally, an improper diagnosis and quarantine can create a huge public scandal and seriously hurt the government’s credibility. It is a classic example of the needs of the individual vs. the needs of society, but making that decision is not an easy task. As the Ebola crisis develops, we will have to wait and see how the government responds and if they decide to resort to such drastic measures.