Quarantines: Between Precaution and Necessity. A Look at COVID-19

Abstract

The events surrounding COVID-19, combined with the mandatory quarantines widely imposed in Asia and Europe since the virus outbreak, have reignited discussion of the balance between individual rights and liberties and public health during epidemics and pandemics. This article analyses this issue from the perspectives of precaution and necessity. There is a difficult relationship between these two seemingly opposite principles, both of which are frequently invoked in this domain. Although the precautionary principle (PP) encourages the use of quarantines, including mandatory quarantines, and associated restrictive measures, the principle of necessity (PN) puts a break on such measures. The COVID-19 pandemic reveals once again the different interrelations between these two principles. However, the alleged conflict between the PN and the PP is based on a superficial analysis. The relation between these two principles is far more complex, as this article will demonstrate.

How should the law respond to emerging infectious diseases: China’s experience and considerations in containing COVID-19

“…Legal normativity pertains to whether a measure conforms to the provisions of existing legal norms. Consequently, previous discussions on the rationality of quarantine measures have often been conflated with discussions on legality [ 16 , 17 ]. By examining the actual circumstances of China’s quarantine measures, a new perspective emerges on the rationality crisis, where the legal normativity of these measures can pose a barrier to achieving rationality in certain situations.…”

The Global Regulation of “Fake News” in the Time of Oxymora: Facts and Fictions about the Covid-19 Pandemic as Coincidences or Predictive Programming?

“…Finally, it was despite the so-called "indivisibility of human rights" that the political and civil aspects of fundamental rights were separated from their social, economic and cultural counterparts by means of the two 1966 International Covenants mentioned before. This problem and the balance of different rights is also manifest in the context of the current pandemic 10 with the problem of finding the right balance between individual rights and liberties and their restrictions due to public health during pandemics [91,100].…”

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“…A final empirical argument is called in order to end the discussion. In the middle of the major sanitary crisis that is the SARS-Cov-2 pandemic, it seems appropriate to prioritize the precautionary principle and avoid any hospital-related activity that could eventually bring harm (Hanna et al 2020;Raposo 2021). As life stories are not to be directly gathered, another solution must be found.…”