White House pushes states to reverse Ebola quarantine orders

The White House is pressuring the governors of New York and New Jersey to reverse their orders imposing a quarantine on all medical workers returning from West Africa who had contacts with Ebola patients, the New York Times reported on Sunday. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie made the decisions on Friday after a doctor who treated patients in Guinea came back to New York infected. Illinois and Florida said they were also imposing similar steps. The tough new policies followed reports that a New York doctor had tested positive for Ebola after returning home from treating victims of the virus in Guinea. The doctor’s diagnosis fueled growing concerns that health care workers returning home from West Africa could spread the virus on U.S. soil. Christie, speaking earlier on “Fox News Sunday,” stood his ground. “We’ve taken this action and I have absolutely no second thoughts about it” he said.

They’re really heroes, and imposing these draconian policies could hurt the overall effort.

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on quarantining medical workers

A nurse who returned on Friday through New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport after working in Sierra Leone with Ebola patients, strongly criticized the quarantine policy on Saturday, describing hours of questioning and then transfer to a hospital isolation tent, calling her treatment a “frenzy of disorganization.” Fauci reiterated what the medical officials have been stressing as Americans worry about the spread of the disease: that it is spread only by contact with bodily fluids of people with symptoms.

Ebola quarantine Americas