Written by Dr Thomas Douglas
Dr Tom Douglas has recently published a fascinating article on the Stockholm Centre, For the Ethics of War and Peace blog:
As I write this, COVID-19, an illness caused by the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, is sweeping the globe. Over 15,000 people have died, and it is likely that at least one hundred times this many have been infected with the virus.[2]
The outbreak has brought the ethics of quarantine, isolation and enforced social distancing to public attention. Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and China have been praised in the press for their rigorous deployment of quarantine and other liberty-restricting measures. By contrast, the US and UK have been widely criticised for their relatively lax approach.
There are differences between quarantine (which applies to individuals who may have been exposed to an infection), isolation (which applies to individuals who are ill) and enforced social distancing (which largely preserves freedom of movement), but for the purposes of this post, I’ll treat all three together under the heading of ‘quarantine’. I’ll use this term loosely to refer to all interventions that significantly constrain a person’s freedom of movement and/or association in order to lower the risk that the person will infect others.
See here to read the full article, and to join in the conversation.