It’s only about 157 million people.
That’s the combined population of 16 states from the Southeast to California--and the number of people that New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are gently asking to stay away, or, if they must come, to quarantine in place for 14 days before going out. It’s roughly half the people in the country. And that doesn’t include locals who go to those places and return; they’re also being asked to stringently self-isolate.
Governors Andrew Cuomo, Phil Murphy and Ned Lamont added eight states to an initial list of eight high-infection states last week. The governors maintain the quarantine order is legal, and several legal scholars agree. But there’s active debate on whether it’s practical, desirable, or enforceable.
However, Cuomo conceded at a briefing on Wednesday, “You can't even keep people who want to come in illegally from coming in right now, if they want to really come into the state.”
The governor said he expects people to largely comply with the order voluntarily, the same way most people follow the law and put on seat belts without needing to be policed. At the same time, he said enforcement efforts will be robust and will catch violators, though he and his spokespeople have repeatedly been vague on the mechanics.
Incoming travelers by air are being asked to voluntarily fill out cards about their whereabouts. After the first week, only 4,600 people had filled out the cards. A spokesperson said state Health Department staff members are calling them “randomly” but would not say how many calls were being made daily or cumulatively or how many warnings or citations had been issued to violators.
“If you go to a hotel and a hotel clerk asks, ‘How come you are not in quarantine?’ You go to a business meeting and somebody says, ‘Aren't you supposed to be in quarantine?’ You're stopped by a police officer who says, ‘You're driving a car from a Florida license, weren't you supposed to be in quarantine 14 days?’ Any of those mechanisms you can be detected as violating your quarantine,” Cuomo explained on CNN.
His office declined to say whether any specific guidelines had been drafted for state police or local enforcement agencies, and whether any of their officers had issued warnings or citations. A spokesperson said citizens could call in concerns to an Enforcement Task Force Hotline, but declined to say whether any have.
“No one has been able to explain to me why we’re doing this,” said Sen. Robert Ortt (R-Geneva), the state Senate minority leader. “Back when New York's cases were through the roof, and Rhode Island and other states talked about quarantining or blocking New Yorkers from entering their states. Governor Cuomo roundly criticized that, said it was unconstitutional, and said that was not a smart or responsible thing to do.”
Gloria Browne-Marshall, a constitutional law professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said she supports the idea of quarantining incoming visitors from hot spots – for “the safety and well-being of the whole state and the whole community” – but she said Cuomo and the other governors need to be more clear about how they plan to enforce the orders.
“We have a limited number of people who are in law enforcement, and many laws are based on the honor system,” Browne-Marshall said. “But still, societal pressure is not enough. There has to be some type of enforcement pressure, and I think it's going to be very difficult to enforce this.”
Ortt was not surprised to learn relatively few incoming travelers had voluntarily shared contact information with the state.
“Some people will do their best to comply, but other people will see this as an invasion of privacy,” he said. “’You want to know what -- my sister's address? Who I'm staying with? Where I've traveled before this?’ I think there's a lot of people who might rightfully say, ‘If you want to take my temperature or something, so be it, but I'm not going to just give you all this information, not knowing where that will end up.’”
Dan Feldman, director of the inspection and oversight track at John Jay College, says the fines--which can range from $2,000 to $10,000--are strong enough to deter many potential quarantine breakers.
“If there's at least a symbolic effort, then you know you might be stopped, and if it's a $2,000 fine, that's not inconsiderable,” impact. They do have an impact.”
He said the quarantine could not prevent a determined lawbreaker who's also a so-called "super-spreader" from transmitting the coronavirus, but he said the force of law would likely get enough people who arrive from high-infection states to self-isolate for a fortnight, mitigating the risk for everyone.
The states currently on the list include North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, California, Iowa, Idaho, and Utah.
