Category: Dealing with Communicable Disease

If a quarantinable disease is suspected or identified, the CDC may issue a Federal isolation or quarantine order. Public health authorities at the federal, state, local, and tribal levels may sometimes seek help from police or other law enforcement officers to enforce a public health order.

The U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services is authorized to take measures to prevent the entry and spread of communicable diseases from foreign countries into the United States and between states. The authority for carrying out these functions on a daily basis has been delegated to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Isolation is used to separate ill persons who have a communicable disease from those who are healthy. Quarantine is used to separate and restrict the movement of well persons who may have been exposed to a communicable disease to see if they become ill.

By Executive Order of the President, federal isolation and quarantine are authorized for these communicable diseases: Cholera, Diphtheria, Infectious tuberculosis, Plague, Smallpox, Yellow fever, Viral hemorrhagic fevers (like Ebola), Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Flu that can cause a pandemic.