Amendment IV The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Ebola frightens me. I'm on the "front line", as it were, more so than almost any of you. if it gets loose in this country, people I work with every day are going to die. But irrational, unproven fear cannot trump one's constitutional rights. If ebola is shown to be contagious when the patient is asymptomatic, then things would be different. That is not the case.
I’m sorry, I don’t accept the “lack of a threat” explanation.
Given the state of medicine and science in west africa, the findings are not reassuring and not a guarantee. Can you cite through studies conducted on the ground through the sea of high infection. Can you guarantee me with your financial support that no one who is not symptomatic is infectious?
The president has let the virus into the country and continues to leave the door open.
The CDC and the president have lied several times.
The people being exposed are not following protocol when returning home.
So excuse me if I don’t buy your position.
This is 21 days of home confinement. Not a prison term. Against a disease we know little about, except that it kill 80% of the infected, that is still evolving (rapidly, like every other micro-organism), and developing new ways to kill people. While she has rights, the community around her also has the right to not be killed by her indifference to the possibility that she may be infectious. This isn't superstition or hysteria. The anti-quarantine people are engaging in obscurantism. The reality about Ebola is that we don't know what we don't know, which is how the doctors got infected in the first place. The bug is evolving.
We, including the CDC and most doctors do not know all they need to know about Ebola. You speak as though it is settled. Nobody can prove that.
That is reality.
Your argument misses one key point. At this point, Ms. Hickox has basically said she will ignore the quarantine order placed upon her by the government, which is equivalent to declaring ones intent to ignore any other government imposed requirement. Regardless of whether the government's order is supported by science, is logical, moral, or meets one of many other tests in the absence of some legal remedy to the imposed requirement Ms. Hickox either has to comply or suffer the consequences of not doing so.
It is perfectly within her rights as a citizen to refuse to obey any law in a civil way and protest by way of civil disobedience. Doing so may well highlight the issue for everyone to consider.
But advocating for a right to ignore quarantines based on one's personal opinion of the scientific basis for the quarantine seems like it would create a dangerous mindset in the event a real quarantine was needed. If everyone felt that a quarantine they didn't agree with was grounds for ignoring the quarantine order, then it would be likely that any attempt at future quarantines would fail, or even lead to violence.
Ebola frightens me. I’m on the “front line”, as it were, more so than almost any of you. if it gets loose in this country, people I work with every day are going to die. But irrational, unproven fear cannot trump one’s constitutional rights. If ebola is shown to be contagious when the patient is asymptomatic, then things would be different.
[bold]That is not the case[/bold].
YET. There simply isn’t enough known about this disease to make even that determination at this time.
Fact: If there is no virus in the system, symptoms will be non-existent. But if virus does exist, it takes time for symptoms to appear. Until those symptoms appear, there is no way of knowing if the virus is there. If the virus IS there, then it’s totally stupid to assume it’s not contagious in one form or another.
There are times when you have to think of the good of others above yourself. I personally would rather go under quarantine than think others got sick and died as a result of something I was carrying.
The CDC and other scientific so-called ‘experts’ are far from infallible, especially with regard to this particular disease (and no doubt, other diseases as well), AND, since they are using 1940’s studies to make current determinations, nobody should trust the party line currently out there above good, solid infection control procedures.
It’s MUCH better to be safe, than selfish. The people you kill as a result of that selfishness, might be your own loved ones. You want to live with that? Do THEY want to live with that? Fine. Let them go live with you.
While I despise corruption in ANY government, governments do have a certain responsibility to override when the people refuse to govern themselves. The refusal to govern one’s self is exactly how the rest of us loose (and have lost) our own constitutional freedoms.
Yes, the flu has killed more people in this country than ebola has, but ebola hasn’t been here to do it’s dirty deed the way it has in Africa. Now it’s here and I personally am NOT interested in living with ebola.
Latest study done by WHO reported that 13% of Ebola victims never ran a fever.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-1012-ebola-fever-20141012-story.html#page=1