They told him he had to wear a mask in public. Which was ridiculous. It made him feel like he had a target painted on his back—or his face, actually, right in the middle of his face. But if he wanted to walk out the door of the clinic he was going to walk out with that mask on—either that or go to jail.
Source: Boyle, T. Coraghessan “The Fugitive.” New Yorker, 27 June 2016.
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Current Affairs
In the Time article “Quarantine is being used to manage fear, not Ebola,” The bioethicist Arthur Caplan argues that health care workers returning from West Africa during the Ebola crisis were needlessly quarantined to quell public fears.
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Questions
In The New Yorker interview, the author of the short story, T. Coraghessan Boyle, says that his sympathies are with both Marciano and Rosa Hinajosa. How does he justify his position? Where do your sympathies lie? Why?
To what extent should the state have the power to enforce a quarantine on people who have contagious diseases?
In the Time article “Quarantine is being used to manage fear, not Ebola” Arthur Caplan discuss the ethics of quarantines. The side effect of quarantines are that (i) fewer people will volunteer as health workers in infected regions and (ii) people will become more hesitant to seek medical attention for fear of being detained in quarantine for an indefinite period. The projected outcome may be that the disease will affect more people with rather than without a quarantine. Does this seem like a good reason to refrain from instituting quarantines?
In setting legislation, should politicians let themselves be influenced by the fears of the general public or should they strictly heed the recommendations of the medical experts and ignore public outcries?
On the one hand, people who are ill have not committed a crime and they should not have their civil liberties, including their freedom of movement, curtailed. On the other hand, government has the duty to protect its citizens against the spread of diseases. How can these aspirations be reconciled, if at all?