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by lsiebert 3411 days ago
Quarantine laws exist for a reason.
1 comments

I had never looked it up, and it seems the CDC (unsurprisingly) is involved in applying these laws.

https://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/aboutlawsregulationsquarantin...

From that site, it seems that isolation and quarantine is largely done at borders between states and country. It's also very serious, and it's not something the CDC takes lightly: the last major enforcement of the rule was in 1918 for the Spanish Flu (though it cites there were other minor applications - the ebola scare last year may be one small instance of that).

In context of this, I would imagine that measles would need to be added to the list of diseases quarantine is enforced (I haven't spotted this list yet).

EDIT: found the important list, and it mentions specifically measels are NOT on the list:

  The list of quarantinable diseases is contained in an 
  Executive Order of the President and includes cholera, 
  diphtheria, infectious tuberculosis, plague, smallpox, 
  yellow fever, viral hemorrhagic fevers (such as Marburg, 
  Ebola, and Congo-Crimean), and severe acute respiratory 
  syndromes.
  
  Many other illnesses of public health signficance, such as 
  measles, mumps, rubella, and chicken pox, are not 
  contained in the list of quarantinable illnesses, but 
  continue to pose a health risk to the public. Quarantine 
  Station personnel respond to reports of ill travelers 
  aboard airplanes, ships, and at land border crossings to 
  make an assessment of the public health risk and initiate 
  an appropriate response.

One of the executive orders is linked in that list: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2003-04-09/pdf/03-8832.pdf