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On Monday, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ordered American cruise ship passenger Angela Perryman (47)—said to have been exposed to hantavirus—to remain in quarantine against her will and despite expert advice, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
Quarantine orders can be enforced with fines and prison time.
The U.S. federal government’s quarantine authority comes from Section 361 of the Public Health Service Act, which authorizes HHS/CDC to detain, examine, and conditionally release individuals reasonably believed to be infected with a quarantinable communicable disease, especially in connection with foreign entry or interstate spread.
Per the WSJ report:
The Trump administration’s aggressive approach to isolation requirements amid the outbreak has surprised public-health experts, given several of the administration’s top health officials have a history of criticizing pandemic-era restrictions.
Kennedy said the passenger, Angela Perryman, needed to remain isolated even though a review from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said she should be allowed to quarantine at home in Florida, according to his order viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Perryman, 47, was one of more than a dozen Americans exposed to hantavirus aboard a cruise ship earlier this spring. The group had initially been placed at a Nebraska quarantine unit.
…
Some of the other passengers left the facility in recent weeks after the Trump administration asked their home states to heed certain requirements to continue monitoring them at home, including 24/7 surveillance of the people to ensure compliance.
Florida refused to meet those requirements, according to two CDC employees. They added that CDC experts on infection prevention and control, including quarantine requirements, disagreed with the decision to force Perryman to remain in Nebraska.
Perryman had only agreed to stay in quarantine until May 22.
But the World Health Organization pushed for those said to be exposed to undergo quarantine at home or in a facility for 42 days, citing the purportedly long incubation period of the virus.
She was later told she couldn’t leave.
The quarantine period is set to expire at the end of the day on Sunday, June 21.
Perryman told WSJ that she’s the one being quarantined involuntarily and longs to be outside:
In a phone interview, Perryman said Kennedy’s quarantine order, slipped under her door Monday, was “ridiculous.”
“I’m in a room 23, 24 hours a day,” she said. “It does not serve public health.”
She said her quarantine was set to end on Sunday after 42 days. She expected some of the nine others in quarantine with her to head home this week. She said she believed Kennedy’s order was retaliation for speaking out against the quarantine measures.
“I’m the only one here involuntarily,” she said.
…
Perryman said she thought the quarantine rules had “been inconsistently applied from the very beginning.”
She said she has been locked in a room where workers bring her three meals a day. She can request an hour outside on the roof where she can take off her protective gear and sit in a chair, spaced far apart from others.
Perryman said she is “not good at all” but she has been able to stay connected with her family over the phone to help keep her going.
She said that when she is released from quarantine, she plans to fly home on a commercial flight to Florida, where she lives part time. Once she gets home, she said she plans to “put my feet in the grass and dirt, maybe even touch a tree.” She said her primary residence is in Ecuador.
An HHS spokeswoman claimed the administration’s quarantine order is “necessary to ensure both Ms. Perryman’s and her community’s wellbeing.”
But five weeks after she left the cruise ship, Perryman is still symptom-free, according to a report from The Associated Press (AP).
The report detailed her quarantine experience:
Perryman said life in the facility is like being confined in an airport hotel room. Sometimes she can go to its roof for an hour as armed guards watch. Nurses wearing gloves, masks and face shields deliver meals and take her temperature. She said it feels like a “prison.”
The 47-year-old learned that she would be required to stay in the facility until June 21 when Kennedy’s order was slipped under her door on Monday.
“I was appalled,” she said. “I was horrified that the secretary, who is not a physician, would override the doctor and violate the law just to keep me locked up.”
Perryman said she lives primarily in Ecuador but keeps a permanent home with friends in Florida. She said she wants the chance to cook her own food and spend time in more than one room, either in her home or a rental property.
She told Inside Medicine that she tested negative on both PCR and antibody blood tests.
Meaning an American is being held against her will without direct evidence that she poses a risk to anyone.
Lawrence Gostin is a public health law expert who helped shape current federal quarantine regulations.
He called the decision to keep Perryman in Nebraska “an egregious violation” of a U.S. citizen’s rights.
“She’s being held, deprived of her liberty,” he said.
If the federal government can confine a healthy American against her will under these circumstances, what meaningful limits remain on quarantine power during a purported public-health emergency?
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