Quarantine for travelers buys time as virus spreads
On his return from China last week, Dr. Ian Lipkin quarantined himself in his basement. His wife now puts his food on the stairs. He’s run out of things to watch on Netflix. At odd hours, he walks in New York’s Central Park, keeping 10 feet away from others.
Lipkin is among hundreds of people in the U.S. and thousands around the world who, although not sick, live in semi-voluntary quarantine at home. With attention focused on quarantined cruise ships and evacuees housed on U.S. military bases, those in their own homes have largely escaped notice.
They, too, experts say, play a crucial role in slowing the spread of the new viral disease now called COVID-19.
Most cases and nearly all deaths have been in mainland China. Around the world, authorities are urging two weeks of home quarantine and symptom monitoring for travelers returning from there.
It’s the only tool they have. “We don’t yet have a vaccine and we don’t have approved drugs for prevention of disease or treatment of disease. So all we have is isolation,” said Lipkin, who directs Columbia University’s Center for Infection and Immunity.
An expert virus hunter, Lipkin was invited by Chinese health authorities to help assess the risk posed by COVID-19. He did similar work in China during the SARS outbreak in 2003.
“This is my second time in the slammer,” said Lipkin, who spent time in quarantine then. He will end his confinement Tuesday, celebrating with a dry martini in public.
The numbers in home quarantine are constantly changing and hard to pin down. New York state, for instance, has received the names of more than 350 who recently returned from mainland China. Local health departments are monitoring them, recommending quarantine for those without known exposure to the virus.
State and U.S. guidelines sort people into high-, medium- and low-risk groups and have advice for each group, but local health departments have discretion in how to carry out the quarantines.
Authorities in Taiwan have fined those who violate quarantines, but so far U.S. officials are relying on people’s sense of responsibility, though they have the power to order a quarantine and get help from police to enforce it. Breaking a quarantine order is a misdemeanor in most states. Violating a federal quarantine order can mean fines and imprisonment.
Some have put themselves in quarantine without an order from health authorities. In Highland, Indiana, Ken and Annie Zurek finished 15 days of self-imposed home quarantine Thursday.
“We grew together as a couple,” Ken Zurek said. “I can’t think of any other person I’d want to spend in quarantine together.”
Their confinement began after returning early from a trip to Chongqing, China, to meet their new granddaughter. Ken Zurek, a 63-year-old concrete business owner, had read up on the virus and added a 15th day to their quarantine “because I was a Boy Scout, always trying to be prepared and do the right thing.”
In Seattle, public health workers buy groceries to make sure the people stay comfortable while in home quarantine, bringing one person blueberries, bananas and hair conditioner. Another person confined to a motel room asked for and received an instant teapot to heat soup. The health department workers make sure people have Wi-Fi so they can work and stay connected to family. They arrange calls with counselors for those with anxiety.
Several hundred returning travelers are staying away from others while they monitor their symptoms in Seattle’s King County, where the health department is spending about $200,000 a week on efforts to contain the virus.