Self-Quarantining amid COVID-19

Older adults and people who have severe underlying medical conditions like heart or lung disease or diabetes seem to be at higher risk for developing serious complications from COVID-19.  There is currently no vaccine to prevent the respiratory virus. Staying home is strongly recommended to help flatten the curve of the virus, explains Dr. Michael Hollifield, Director of Emergency Services at Mountain Lakes Medical Center.  “Anyone who does not have an essential need to be outside their home needs to stay in their home. If you need food, if you need medicine, if you need medical care those are the main reasons you should even be outside your home and that is the self-quarantine idea.  Now, quarantine in terms of the legal or governmental sense is if a quarantine order is issued by a judge or a state agency, let’s say that a person who is known to COVID-19 positive leaves their house after they have been told to stay there, interacts with someone, and they come up with COVID-19 for an example then that person then could be subject, I believe, to misdemeanor charges.  So, that is the current state of it but as far as I know now there is no legal quarantine order from the authorities but it would be foolish, in my opinion, to not self-quarantine because you are putting yourself and your family at risk if you don’t do that. There is, although it is low, there is still a risk of death from this virus.”  The best way to prevent illness is to avoid being exposed to this virus, which is thought to spread mainly from person-to-person.