Officials in Dallas are taking steps to keep health workers at home who were in contact with Ebola patients or their bodily fluids.
75 employees of the hospital which treated Liberian Thomas Duncan have been asked to sign legally binding papers in which they agree not to go to public places or use mass transit. This move marks the first steps toward the use of official state power to control the outbreak of disease.
To some, this may be comforting – even common sense. But others warn this is a slippery slope.
Wendy Parmet researches the law of quarantine and health care and is a professor of Law at Northeastern University.
Listen to Cook's commentary for the Texas Standard above, and check out her research here.
