Did we learn nothing from Covid?

[PistachioTiramisu]

I cannot believe that the people who were on board the cruise ship and who have contracted/been exposed to the hantavirus are all being repatriated! Why on earth were they not all kept on the ship until medical personnel were sure they were not infected? I don't care if they wanted to get home to their families - they are a potential danger. So now we have people in France, the UK and I think Japan who have travelled with other people back to their own country. It's madness.,

Their freedom has been removed.

IF they stay inside their house/garden and don't invite friends and relatives in.

Can you not see a difference between agreeing to isolation because you understand how important it is, and the legal system ordering your detention?

To use a comparator what you’re advocating is the same as sectioning- the legal power to detain a person at a hospital- Vs the patient being able to recover at home and have home visits from a doctor.

are we the type of country that sections people unnecessarily? No. Because we respect citizens autonomy. I don’t want to see that change.

Because legal enforcement does make a difference.

It's why things like double yellow lines and other parking rules can be legally enforced, as not everyone responds to polite requests.

I can still park on double yellows though can’t I? I just have to pay the fine.

its 22 people.

People are sectioned to protect them from themself and other people from their actions.

They are legally restrained because they cannot be trusted to restrain themself.

The difference between you and me is that I do not think ordinary flawed human beings can be trusted to be in their own homes and not invite friends and relatives in, or to maintain a strict isolation on day 40,41, 42 at the end of six weeks when they have felt perfectly well the entire time.

Six weeks isolating in your own home is a HUGE ask unless you are an agoraphobia hermit with no friends or relatives. An ask that I truly believe will be beyond the majority of ordinary people.

Yes, it's only 22 people.

Who may be carrying a disease which kills over a third of the people who catch it.

You keep saying 22 as if it's a reason to quarantine at home. For others of us, the tiny number is all the more reason for a proper quarantine.

You are suggesting that rather than self isolate, people are legally detained in hospitals. This is no different to sectioning. Sectioned people are not restrained. They are detained.

22 people are not worth Changing the law for, no.

Yes I know what I wrote thank you.

no law change would be required to isolate these people, the law already exists as you would expect it to. We use it for rabies.

It’s a different kind of virus transmitted in a different way

To covid or rabies?

It's transmitted in a fairly similar manner to covid, via inhaled aerosols and droplets, from what I understand. I don't think covid was transferrable via human blood, faeces, and urine, also, though. I have read that Hantaviruses can live for up to 15 days on surfaces, depending on conditions.

Covid is far more easily transmitted and Andes hantavirus is far more deadly. Andes also has a long incubation time of up to 8 weeks, so more people can be infected and not know it, and more waves of infection can occur if not quarantined fully early. The Andes virus does not discriminate agewise, also.

If you are referring to my comment about the legal right to enforce isolation, it doesn't matter what the disease is. The point was that the law which a poster said would have to be created is already in existence and all that's required to use it is for the authorities to declare a disease serious enough risk to warrant forced quarantine.