Honestly, if someone is directed to self-quarantine at home and they violate that quarantine for anything less than a true emergency or at the direction of the authorities, we should just summarily execute them. With video. And post it on social media and make it part of official government announcements that the media would be expected to cover in full.
Think of the photo of the Viet Cong spy that was summarily executed by an ARVN officer, only in color and on video.
Enough of those and the number people willing to violate home quarantine will drop significantly.
Think of it as preparation for when something as deadly as Ebola gets out. It's only a matter of time before that happens, so the more we change the lackadaisical attitude people have about quarantine the better.
Jeeezus. And you clearly consider yourself one of the good guys. Have you considered relocating to China? Or even better North Korea. Peasants like you don't realise it's you that create the problems nobody else.
Ok,
@happyuk, I'll admit to a bit of hyperbole to make my point about how serious quarantine is.
Right now there are 3 main approaches to quarantine.
There's the historical one. Think plague ship. Historically we would make everyone stay on board the ship until they all died or people stopped getting sick. Safe for everyone off the ship, pretty hellish for everyone on the ship. Typically only a few people on the ship are sick at first, but if they have to stay packed together in close quarters a whole lot of them will end up dying. And if we have to create an ad-hoc quarantine facility on land, we keep putting people in it until no more of them have the disease. Let's say there's a 2 week danger zone, so we have to keep them for 2 weeks. One day 12 we need to put new people into the quarantine facility. If this is an ad hoc facility, we may not be able to keep the new folks and the almost ready-to-leave folks separated. So, on day 12 of 14, our original folks have to say another 14 days, for a total of 26. Of course, if new people get added on day 25, now the original folks are stuck there until day 39! With every new person added to the ad-hoc facility who mixes with the folks already there, we up the odds that the people in quarantine die.
So, we evolved to our current method. Recognizing that most people on the ship or who came into contact with the sick person probably aren't sick, we let people self-quarantine in their own homes. That way, society gets the benefit of quarantine and far fewer people on the plague ship end up dying. Sounds like a win-win.
Except.
Except when people on home quarantine break quarantine because they are selfish pricks who endanger everyone else. Except when the wrong person doing the wrong thing with the wrong disease causes a massive outbreak and thousands or up to 20 million people die. (Yes, epidemics killing 20 million people world wide have happened in the last hundred and two years.)
And what's the legal penalty for breaking home quarantine? I'm no lawyer, but a quick google search brought up 42 US Code 271, which provides for a fine of up to $1000 and/or 1 year in jail.
Ok, that's a bit stiffer than the "Boys will be boys, what can you do?" rape-culture defense thinks is appropriate for boys from well-to-do families or who are good at sports should get when they rape a girl, but not by much.
Surely "Attempted mass murder thru intentional and willful negligence" should be a crime that carries a higher fine than the cost of a $30 speeding ticket and the resultant increase in auto insurance rates.
I think the 3rd way, "Boys will be boys", needs to be scrapped. Breaking quarantine is deadly serious. The crime should be breaking quarantine, NOT whether someone died because of it. That way, the charges are simple, easily proven if guilty and no reasonable mitigating circumstances apply, and justice can be swift -- which is EXACTLY what is needed when needing to get people's attention about not breaking quarantine.
