Trump Backs Off Plan to Quarantine New York–New Jersey Coronavirus Hotspot

“I don’t even know what that means,” Cuomo said, adding "I don’t know what you would be accomplishing" and that he doesn’t “like the sound of it.”

In an interview with CNN, he "said that preventing people from moving in and out of the tri-state would amount to a federally imposed lockdown, which he believes is illegal," reported CNBC. 

“A lockdown is what they did in Wuhan, China,” Cuomo said. “We’re not in China, and we’re not in Wuhan. I don’t believe it would be legal. I believe it would be illegal.“

Policy change via tweet

The policy change was announced via Twitter on Saturday night "that he would not impose a quarantine on New York, New Jersey and Connecticut to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, but would instead issue a 'strong' travel advisory for the region to be enacted by the governors of the three states," report Michael D. Shear and Annie Karni for The New York Times.

Later Saturday night, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a formal advisory urging the residents of the three states to “refrain from nonessential domestic travel for 14 days effective immediately.”

The president’s musing about a quarantine — and his subsequent decision to back away from the idea — was the latest example of how he has lurched from one public message to another as his administration struggles to slow the spread of a deadly pandemic.

Fauci clarifies what happened

Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a key member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, told CNN's Jake Tapper on Sunday morning that "after discussions with the president, we made it clear, and he agreed, that it would be much better to do a strong advisory."

Enforcing the quarantine would create difficulties which would be avoided with the travel advisory, he added, noting that the reasoning behind the president's action is that "the infection rate in the New York City area is about 56 percent of all of the new infections in the country. What you don't want is people traveling from that area to other areas and inadvertently infecting others."

As for the original quarantine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "is authorized to detain, medically examine, and release persons arriving into the United States and traveling between states who are suspected of carrying these communicable diseases," according to its isolation and quarantine webpage.

However, such an order would likely backfire, write Shear and Karni, "causing residents to flee for fear of being stuck — only to potentially take the virus with them."

The COVID-19 death toll in the U.S., as of March 28, is 1,965. New York, New Jersey and California lead the nation with 728, 140, and 101, deaths, respectively. In response to Tapper's question about how many cases might be expected in the U.S., Fauci indicated that depending on the modeling, it could be between 100,000 and 200,00. He then quickly corrected that to mean deaths. The current caseload stands above 118,000.

Related in Planetizen: 

• White House Could End 'Slow the Spread' Coronavirus Guidelines, March 24, 2020
  
• New York and Illinois Follow in California's Footsteps by Declaring Shutdowns, March 22, 2020