The measures proposed in the comment are essentially imposing a quarantine, that is barring some people from coming into contact with some other people, including limits on their travel. It is a logical extension of food rules.

The argument is quite well received by the very reasonable facebook rationalists crowd. However many rationalists were quite clearly squicked out by the idea of quarantine when applied to lethal diseases ( http://lesswrong.com/lw/l3u/link_the_coming_plague/ ), yet talking about the minor inconvenience of colds suddenly everyone is a utilitarian and is willing to suspend certain supposedly sacred rights.

Hypothetically make the disease in question incurable and lethal, and instead of quarantine being even more obvious an answer since it has higher externialities, it becomes even less acceptable to propose.

Something funny is going on with people's moral reasoning here and I suspect it isn't peculiar to rationalists, but reflective of something in wider culture. Consider the difference in the acceptability of proposing quarantines when it came to Sars and Ebola.

• 2009 Flu Pandemic in the United States
• Sars - spread to other countries and regionsg