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Q&A: What can the government force people to do in the name of containing the coronavirus?
Q&A: What can the government force people to do in the name of containing the coronavirus?
Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images/TNS
In principle, the federal government can impose quarantine and isolation orders. But it doesn’t seem keen to test that power. It’s probably not a coincidence that the first people to be quarantined after leaving Wuhan were largely State Department employees and their relatives. “This is a part of their civic responsibility to protect their communities,” Dr. Martin Cetron, who directs CDC’s Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, told reporters when the quarantine began. “So, they understand this.” Cetron downplayed the need for the federal government to flex its muscles in issuing quarantines.