New York Lawmaker Pulls Public Health Detainment Bill, Blames ‘Conspiracy Theorists’

New York Lawmaker Pulls Public Health Detainment Bill, Blames ‘Conspiracy Theorists’
A man is tested for COVID-19 in New York City on Dec. 8, 2021. Eduardo Munoz/Reuters
Bill Pan
Bill Pan
Reporter
|Updated:

A New York lawmaker has taken down a 6-year-old bill that would authorize the state to detain infected individuals and their contacts deemed a threat to public health during a pandemic, blaming “conspiracy theorists” of spreading misinformation about his proposal.

The bill in question, known as A416, was first introduced by Assemblyman Nick Perry in 2015, nearly a year after the nationwide panic over a potential outbreak of Ebola in the United States. The Brooklyn Democrat said the measure was prompted by an incident in which a nurse refused to be placed in quarantine after returning from West Africa, where she'd helped treat Ebola patients.