"Belonging" and Ebola quarantines

“But, confound it…I don’t belong here!” the character Raymond Rambert from Albert Camus’s fictional work, “The Plague” said. This novel provides a fictional depiction of a town infected with the plague and as a result, set under a quarantine. This character had been visiting the town when the outbreak occurred. He believed that he should be let out of the quarantine to return home because he did not belong in the town. The others should remain because it was their town that was infected, but he did not belong with them.

As I read news articles about Ebola and the health worker quarantined in New Jersey, I could not help but think back to this story. There seems to be nothing extraordinary about asking those in an infected country to be quarantined to protect others from the spread of the disease. But for us to ask someone who did not “belong” there to do so seems to be a problem. (I will use the terms “us” or “we” to refer to the US general public, although I recognize that this use is not entirely accurate).

Clearly, these two situations, besides the fact that one is fictional and the other is not, do have differences. The character was on vacation whereas the nurse was there specifically to help with the disease. Perhaps because of this we evaluate the nurse’s situation as one of sacrifice, being willing to go into an infected area to provide help. The idea that she is a type of “hero” makes us feel that she should be treated differently from the ones she was “saving.” And I am sure that to some degree that is how the public in the US feels. Additionally, there are concerns about others choosing to go work with the Ebola outbreak if they know an unpleasant quarantine experience awaits them. But I wonder if the differentiation between those in more heavily affected countries and those going to provide aid is more problematic than that. I, obviously, do not have the answers, but I do have some concerns.

The first is whether or not the public in general views those affected in other nations as people. I do not mean if they think of them as being sub-human, but whether their individual humanity is considered. Are there individual faces with individual lives or one mass of people somewhere far away that could threaten the health and safety of the US? When people are viewed as non-persons instead of individuals, it becomes easier to disregard their well-being. But the nurse in New Jersey we can put a fact to, we can imagine being in her shoes. Thinking of that individual person and imagining being in her situation makes understanding her concerns simpler. Perhaps this difference, a group of ‘non-persons’ and a relatable individual, promotes the difference in standards.

I also have concerns about what I will call unconscious blaming. I used the terms hero and saving earlier to get at this point. Is Ebola viewed as a global health problem that we are equally responsible for to some degree? Or is it viewed as a problem begun in the ‘less-developed’ world from which those in the ‘developed’ world can save them? Is blame unconsciously placed on those in more affected nations? If on some level it is believed to be their fault and responsibility than of course they should be quarantined to protect us and we should have the most comfortable experience possible in ‘helping’ them. After all, we don’t “belong” there.