State Quarantines, Ebola and Human Rights
Last Sunday, Kaci Hickox, a nurse placed under mandatory quarantine in New Jersey after returning from treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone, went on CNN and criticized the “knee-jerk reaction by politicians” to Ebola. Said Hickox of her quarantine, “This is an extreme that is really unacceptable, and I feel like my basic human rights have been violated.”
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) has posted a measured statement on U.S. quarantines that makes the same point, noting that the Siracusa Principles, rather than politics, should be the touchstone for determing responses to public health challenges. And as Human Rights Watch has articulated, these international human rights principles “require that restrictions on human rights in the name of public health or public emergency meet requirements of legality, evidence-based necessity, and proportionality.” An in-depth discussion of these human rights standards and Ebola is captured in a video featuring Widney Brown, Director of Programs at PHR, taped at Roosevelt House in New York City. As Professor Sarah Cleveland and others have noted, these standards are applicable to all levels of government, not just federal entities.
Meanwhile, of course, the epicenter of the crisis is in West Africa, not New Jersey or New York or the handful of other states that have announced mandatory quarantines. One important concern articulated by PHR is that aggressive state quarantines will discourage those with relevant skills from helping during this crisis where help is most needed. Partners in Health, working closely with local medical organizations in Liberia and Sierra Leone, is hiring short and long-term clinical and non-clinical staff to help on the ground in West Africa. As UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated, “the only way to stop Ebola is to stop it at its source” — a source that includes, as Alicia Yamin points out, persistent poverty and neglect. In the U.S., measures that distract us from focusing on that source are the real threat.