Quarantining test negative people is irrational and illegal

Vincent J. Curtis

31 Jan 21

RE: New Travel Rules should come as no surprise.  Spectator editorial of 20 Jan 21.

It can drive real scientists around the bend when people with power pretend to be scientists too.  Take for example a well-known drama teacher who decided to kill as much joy as possible and ordered the quarantining of anyone returning to Canada from the sunny Caribbean.

As the Spec editorial described it, upon return by a person is subjected to a rapid COVID test at the airport.  If that person tests negative, they head home to finish their quarantine.  What?  Wait a minute!  They tested negative, they don’t have the disease!!  Quarantines are for people that you don’t know are positive or negative, and the purpose of quarantine is to give time for symptoms to develop or for the disease to run its course.  Quarantining people known to by healthy is not just irrational, it’s illegal under the Quarantine Act.

If the person upon return tests positive, they will be taken to a hotel for isolation.  There are several such hotels in the Toronto area, and the incarcerated are not presently forced to pay for the stay because holding them there is illegal.  Forcing people to pay to be kept unlawfully incarcerated is also illegal.  What are authorities going to do if an inmate calls a cab and simply leaves the premises – arrest them and send them to jail?

Forcing returning Canadians to be tested intrusively at the airport is illegal.  Quarantining people who test negative is irrational and illegal, and forcible confinement of test-positive people is also illegal.  Don’t drag the good name of science into this!

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