Legal Issues in Quarantine and Isolation for Control of Emerging Infectious Diseases

Kim, Cheonsoo

Accordingly, the measures addressing shutdown of or forbidding entry to medical institutions that had been the source of MERS-CoV had been, in the past, self-administered by the medical institution; however, following the amendments, the Ministry of Health and Welfare and local government leaders gained the legal authority to actively take such measures, either all at once or selectively as necessary. If the site in question is a medical institution, method (1) involves shutdown of the entire site and method (3) involves partial shutdown. Method (2) should be applied regardless of whether complete or partial shutdown. In the case of respiratory syndromes, measures that enforce shutdown of areas within a certain distance from the medical institution in question are also allowed according to measures of (4). The second type of property quarantine measure blocks passage of the entire region or part of the region regulated by the minister in authority or by local government leaders regardless of the type of infectious disease or of its prevalence for its prevention.