The new coronavirus is spreading at an accelerating rate, but inappropriate quarantines and travel bans could cause more havoc than the disease itself. The World Health Organization has a duty to protect human health but also an obligation to protect the world's citizens from the human rights violations or unnecessary economic hardship that panic could cause. So far, they're doing a good job of striking this tricky balance.
The WHO has advised against the far-reaching travel bans that some conservative U.S. lawmakers want to impose on China, where the outbreak started. The recent announcement that the United States will quarantine 195 people evacuated from Wuhan makes sense as long as the people are held in a safe, comfortable environment.
But going too far will not solve the problem, and may even make it worse. Mass quarantines driven by panic have backfired, says Amy Fairchild, dean of the Ohio State University College of Public Health. In 1892, for example, people blamed Jewish immigrants for an outbreak of typhus, and they were rounded up and forced to live in tents on an island in the East River. The crowding of sick people with healthy ones only caused the disease to spread further.