https://thedispatch.com/p/what-if-we-tried-a-real-quarantine
yeah, that's a no from me, dawg
Quote:
It is not too late for the U.S. to implement centralized quarantine programs. The U.S. has 5 million hotel rooms, mostly vacant right now. We also have thousands of vacant schools that could be converted into temporary residences for low-risk individuals. And if that's not enough, the U.S. military and FEMA both have enormous experience setting up large-scale temporary habitation areas. They could certainly set up centralized quarantine sites for hundreds of thousands or even millions of Americans.
However, many Americans worry about what centralized quarantine would mean. So let me dispel some myths.
Centralized quarantine will separate parents and children.
It is likely that children could be quarantined with parents in necessary cases. Children are at very low risk of dying of COVID, and if we're using hotels and schools, there will be no shortage of family-size rooms. It is unnecessary to break up families in a centralized quarantine program (though if families request separate placement, that could be arranged too). Furthermore, in most cases, if one family member tests positive, all others are likely to be close contacts, and thus will be subjected to quarantine anyways.
Isolation will be miserable.
In the case of people who test positive but are symptomatic or low-risk, it may not be necessary to have individual isolation at all. Group quarantine of positive-but-low-risk individuals should not pose any significant public health risk. For others, isolation will be difficult, but, again, assuming hotels are the dominant quarantine site, individuals should at least have access to the internet to entertain themselves.
Quarantine will result in ruined household budgets.
The government can and should compensate individuals for lost work time. Paying quarantined individuals a reasonably high, fixed per-day rate would be no costlier than the COVID relief programs already in place, and far more useful to society on the whole.
People will be forced into camps at gunpoint.
While centralized quarantine should be mandatory, it probably will not require much or any actual force. The government can achieve its goals in a far simpler way: administrative fines. Individuals resisting a quarantine order could simply have a daily fine levied on them, set by a judge at a level sufficiently large to be likely to create compliance. Some people might pay the fine or accept bankruptcy, but most people would give in pretty quickly after racking up $1,000 daily fines. Failure to pay the fine would simply result in a lien on property or wage garnishment by the IRS, not a SWAT team knocking down your door. Centralized quarantine in America need not involve the police at all. Achieving 90 percent compliance and raking in huge fines from the remainder would still be a huge improvement over the status quo.
Americans won't accept this.
Just like they didn't accept lockdowns? The idea that Americans won't accept a bootheel on their liberty seems pretty clearly disproven at this point: Centralized quarantine is a soft slipper by comparison. Moreover, it's still early, and anecdotal, but businesses in states that have reopened are reporting that customers are not turning out in droves, despite our collective desire to return to normal.
yeah, that's a no from me, dawg