Public Health and Ethical Consideration on the Quarantine of Diamond Princess

Reina Motegi, Junko Kiriya, Masamine Jimba
Volume 3 Issue 2 Pages 1-11
First Published: March 20, 2021

Abstract

Japan experienced a sharp increase of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients with the case of the cruise ship Diamond Princess docked at Yokohama. The Japanese government decided to take the massive quarantine measure to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in the country. However, the quarantine measure must be justified with an ethical point of view since it imposed the threat to human rights. We used an analytic tool for public health ethics to discuss the case with ethical considerations, focusing on burdens of people on board and ways to minimize them. Although the quarantine on the ship was proved to be effective in controlling the virus, it is important to further discuss and seek the intervention that is evidence based, fairly implemented and socially acceptable.