Werman: How different do you see the situation in other countries? Because we're seeing places that are banning travel from Iran, for example, right now. I just saw an Italian flight that landed in Mauritius. Passengers were on lockdown. So there's a lot of this going on in very, kind of, sporadic places around the world.

People with surgical masks at Tanah Abang station in Jakarta, Indonesia, February 13, 2020. Reuters

Pope: So there are a couple of different variables here. One of the questions is what are the health systems that are in place in the countries that we're talking about? Again, post-Ebola, we learned that there was so much work to be done between improving the health systems of various countries around the world — basic things, from monitoring cases, providing rapid response, doing the contact tracing — that kind of thing that was just missing.

And so if we're talking about a country that does not yet have some of those basic metrics in place, then I do think that there are more compelling reasons for them to be careful about admitting people who they have reason to believe are infected. When we're talking about countries like the United States, like Europe, Japan, other places which have very, very well-developed health care systems, very well developed infection control procedures in place and very highly functioning governments, then it's a different matter. And those countries, again, leading by example, can actually make the situation far worse.

Ultimately, we don't want to drive people who are unwell underground. We don't want to end up in a situation where people are not reporting that they might be infected. That is far more damaging to communities than it is to be transparent, to identify who's ill, to treat them appropriately, to not take overly restrictive or punitive measures against them.