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A little logic needed for quarantine measures

According to regulations imposed by the Cabinet's SARS Control and Relief Committee, as of June 9, Taiwanese citizens and people arriving from areas with recent local transmission of SARS (China, Hong Kong and Toronto) for business purposes can be exempted from the level-B home quarantine in order to stimulate normal commercial activities.

Mainland Affairs Council Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said in media reports that the easing of controls is meant to help businesspeople. The businesspeople allowed the exemption must be those permitted by the Investment Commission of the Ministry of Economic Affairs to invest in China. Others coming back from China, such as businesspeople's relatives, visitors or students, are still subject to quarantine.

One can't help but wonder where the logic is behind the border controls. The new rule applies different standards to people with different travel purposes.

If the government believes the possibility of people from SARS-affected areas contracting the disease is extremely low and that, with appropriate health management, it is unnecessary to put them under home quarantine, then this standard should be applied to everyone from these areas.

According to the new rule, within 10 days upon their arrival in Taiwan, the businesspeople free from level-B controls should adopt necessary protection measures, including taking their temperature twice a day, wearing masks in enclosed spaces and avoiding mass transportation.

If the government believes that this is a feasible method of risk control, such a measure should be applied to all visitors. If, on the contrary, this method cannot limit risk, it should not be applied to anyone.

How strict should border controls be? Recently, World Health Organization (WHO) experts on contagious diseases said the fact that SARS has not rapidly spread around the world as was initially expected should be ascribed to appropriate border and travel restrictions. Even so, former Department of Health chief Lee Ming-liang (李明亮) said experts from the WHO and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention regard some of Taiwan's disease-control measures, including border controls, as being excessive.

To cope with the uncertain threat from SARS, the most effective method regarded by all governments is inspection and quarantine. Many countries, therefore, established regulations on departing or arriving passengers. This country had some of the most rigid regulations, forbidding the entrance of people from affected areas or putting them under mandatory quarantine.

The recent understanding that one of the paths of SARS transmission is close contact with patients in an enclosed room has led to a return to normal activities. Border controls are just one of them.

Taiwan's disease prevention measures are tighter than those stipulated by the WHO in many ways. This is perhaps because this country happens to have had close interactions with areas hit hard by SARS. Border controls, therefore, became one of the important ways to contain the disease.

We should watch closely the possibilities of discriminatory treatment and damage to human rights that travelers from SARS-affected areas might be subject to when governments carry out disease prevention measures.

Taiwan is one of the areas severely hit by the epidemic. The Taiwanese people are likely to become victims of inappropriate border controls when traveling abroad. We should therefore be aware of the influence created by our own border controls. Discrimination must not exist in border inspections.

Tseng Yen-fen is a professor in the department of sociology at National Taiwan University.

Translated by Jackie Lin
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