The Value of Quarantine Vs. The Valuing of Openness

SARS was effectively eliminated by means of quarantine and nothing else. By quarantine alone, and in defiance of cynical demands to maintain openness even to epidemics of lethal disease, the infectious agent of SARS was controlled. If openness is a reasonable value for us, quarantines cannot be. Therefore, openness as a value is not compatible with human life as it exists today, since it would disallow quarantines, and there still occur epidemics which can be controlled by quarantines only.