The state Health Department is proposing new rules for outbreaks of disease that include clarified isolation and quarantine procedures, including civil penalties for those who don’t follow the public health orders.

The proposed rule surfaced late Tuesday after Rep. Chris Jacobs, R-Orchard Park, sent a comment to the state Health Department opposing the rule.

“As this proposed rule is written, it could give local health officials the power to remove individuals from their homes and place them in a government-controlled quarantine facility if they are simply exposed to COVID-19 or other communicable diseases,” Jacobs said. “Not only is this blatantly authoritarian, but it is an affront to the individual freedoms and liberties of each and every New Yorker. As other states move to end COVID-19 restrictions, New York State is actively working to assume more power over residents’ lives and implement policies that violate their constitutional rights — I strongly oppose any such measure.”

Among the changes would be a new section of the state health law spelling out new isolation and quarantine procedures. Isolation and quarantine orders would include home isolation or other residential or temporary housing location that the public health authority issuing the order deems appropriate, including a hospital if necessary but including apartments, hotels or motels.

Specifically, an isolation or quarantine order would be required to specify the basis for the order, the location the person is to isolate or quarantine unless travel is authorized — such as for medical care; the length of the order; and instructions to prevent transmission to people living or working at the isolation or quarantine location. The new guidance includes the right to request the public health authority issuing the order inform a reasonable number of people of the order, a statement the person has the right to seek judicial review of the order and a statement that the person has the right to legal counsel, including public defense.

Also spelled out is authority for public health bodies to monitor people to make sure they are complying with an isolation or quarantine order to determine if the person needs additional medical care; coordination with local law enforcement to make sure people comply with the order; and provision of food, laundry, medical care and medications if they are not otherwise available. Any person who violates a public health order shall be subject to all civil and criminal penalties as provided for by law. For purposes of civil penalties, each day the order is violated is a separate violation.

“Now, over a year and half after the first cases were identified in the United States, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has identified a concerning national trend of increasing circulation of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant,” the rule states. “Since early July, cases have risen more than 10-fold, and over 99 percent of the sequenced recent positives in New York State were the Delta variant. In light of this situation, these regulations update, clarify and strengthen the Department’s authority as well as that of local health departments to take specific actions to control the spread of disease, including actions related to investigation and response to a disease outbreak, as well as the issuance of isolation and quarantine orders.”

The new rules also clarify reporting requirements for communicable diseases, including requiring the state health commissioner to designate communicable diseases that require prompt action and to make that list available on the state Health Department website.

The proposed new rules for isolation and quarantine are reminiscent of legislation proposed for the past several years by Assemblyman Nick Perry, D-Brooklyn. Perry proposed allowing the governor or the appropriate health official to order the removal and detention of any person afflicted with a communicable disease in the event that there is a state of health emergency declared by the governor in relation to such disease.

Perry’s proposal was first introduced in the 2015-16 legislative session after an ebola scare and was reintroduced in 2017-18, 2019-20 and 2021-22 sessions. The bill was first proposed in 2015 after a nurse defied quarantine orders after treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone. The legislation never moved out of the Assembly Health Committee, but a social media furor late in 2021 prompted Perry to withdraw the legislation and prompted a response from Richard Gottfried, D-New York City and Assembly Health Committee chairman.

“This bill has been introduced every year since 2015, has never been taken up by the (state Assembly Health) Committee, has not been cosponsored by other legislators, and has not had a companion bill in the Senate,” Gottfried said in a statement to the Associated Press. “The committee does not plan to put the bill on an agenda.”