The National Health and Family Planning Commission has gone to Yumen to implement control measures. It is not clear on whose authority quarantines were issued, but reports say that authorities in the city of Juiquan, Gansu Province, implemented quarantine in four areas on Thursday, July 17, 2014: Yuman City, Chijin Tow, Xihu Village and an unnamed rural area. In addition, roads have been closed into and out of Jiuquan, including Lianhuo Expressway that lings east Jiangsu Province with the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and it is being enforced by local police officers.
According
to reports, the third-highest in a four-tier quarantine law was implemented in
these areas and roads going in and out of the area.
“As
a result of the emergency alert -- the third-highest in a four-tier system -
four quarantine areas have been set up: in Yumen City, Chijin Town, Xihu
Village and an unnamed rural area, the government said. Several roads into and
out of Jiuquan have also been closed, including the Lianhuo Expressway that
links east Jiangsu Province and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, local
traffic police said. "We don't know when the road will reopen," said
Meng Guanghui, a police officer who patrols the expressway, adding that drivers
have been told to find alternative routes.”China’s Law on the Prevention and Treatment of Infectious Diseases categorizes plague as a Class A infectious disease, the highest level.
During the SARS outbreak, China’s quarantine laws included individual and area quarantines such as the one described in these recent news accounts. Area quarantines are unusual in the United States and are typically reserved for agriculture quarantines, not people. Quarantining a region or town for a human disease would be a highly unusual action and is not a measure provided for in most state public health emergency laws, although it has been recommended in model legislation as an important tool for managing infectious disease outbreaks.
Isolation and quarantine are hot topics right now- and they'll probably feature more regularly in legal news as the current Ebola crisis develops. It's fairly uncommon to hear about these issues occurring in the United States as they tend to run into questions of liberty interest, but as more volunteers exposed to the virus return home I think we can expect to hear more of this conversation in a domestic context.
ReplyDeleteQuarantine does present a question of liberty interest in America, simply because of the Constitution. However, scientists have recently begun theorising that there is evidence to support the idea that Ebola has developed airborne vector virus tendencies. Although this is still in the theory stages at the moment, even as a theory, this indicates a necessity to look at containment, isolation, and quarantine protocol to face the potential and overwhelming problem that this might present.
ReplyDelete