EbolaU.S. officials mull quarantines, other options should Ebola spread

With the possibility of a wider spread of Ebola in the United States, U.S. officials are weighing the legal authority of instituting quarantines, while also keeping public panic to a minimum.

As Stars and Stripes reports, while medical expertise and updated guidelines have been provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), federal government officials are also considering the implications of quarantines, bans on travel to-and-from other countries, and public health emergency declarations which could tap into more earmarked funds for larger operations.

Until now, however, most quarantine jurisdictions reside with individual states, as was the case in Dallas, Texas recently when state health officials quarantined the surviving family of Thomas Duncan, the first man to die from the disease within the country.

According to Public Health Services Act (PL 78-410), the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) can step in if the quarantine does not contain the disease with the bounds of the state.

“It’s not like a military situation, because your troops on this are primarily your state and local health officials, so it has to be collaborative,” said Gene Matthews, a retired chief legal adviser to the CDC. Despite this, state governments can deploy the National Guard to enforce quarantine actions should they be necessary. The Guard’s biohazard units and resources could also help aid with the effort, according to an unnamed National Guard representative.

“We stand ready to support the needs identified by the U.S. government’s lead agencies,” the official added, saying that “the Guard is ‘actively involved’ in the planning process at both state and federal levels.”

Currently, state-controlled National Guard units each feature a 22-man biohazard unit that can work within that region.

Further, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, most states modernized the health codes and quarantine and emergency laws, but still grapple with funding issues should the need actually arise, according to Matthews.

“I’m not laying awake at night thinking about whether some state official has the legal authority, but whether they have the resources,” he said, “It’s now about the money.”

If needed, a presidential disaster declaration would drastically change the budget for emergency operations, evoking the Stafford Act (PL 100-707) through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). This could still be a likely option should confidence in local authorities diminish — especially if President Barack Obama wished to establish a more firm leadership role in a crisis.

“When you lose credibility, you’re toast,” said Jay Carafano, the vice president of the Heritage Foundation, “You could potentially see situations where they jump the threshold pretty quickly because they see the pressure that they have to do something.”