Ebola Quarantines Challenge Region
A nurse working with Doctors Without Borders gave a detailed account of her quarantine in New Jersey since Friday, on orders from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, to the Dallas Morning News.
For nurse Kaci Hickox, the good news is that her tests for Ebola came back negative. But that's where the good news stops. In her op-ed, she wrote that she never developed a fever, and her temperature was incorrectly measured by a forehead scan. She wrote that she was treated like a criminal, held in a tent outside the University Hospital in Newark, and she worried that other returning colleagues would face a similar ordeal.
Like the New York City physician currently being treated for the disease at Bellevue Hospital, Hickox just returned from treating Ebola patients in West Africa. Her description of her ordeal, published as a first-person account, underscored a number of unanswered questions about the new quarantine policy and how local leaders are grappling to answer them.
Governors Christie and Cuomo announced late Friday afternoon announced new quarantine order that anyone flying into Newark Liberty and Kenney airports, and had contact with Ebola patients in affected countries in West Africa, would be subject to a mandatory 21-day quarantine.
And on Saturday, both governors defended the order, despite Hickox’s account.
Gov. Christie, with an eye on a possible 2016 presidential run, told reporters in Sioux City, Iowa, that he was sorry if Hickox was inconvenienced, “but she was obviously ill”, and his “first and foremost obligation is to protect the public health.”
Gov. Cuomo, also on the campaign trail in Westchester for re-election next week, said his position was to err on the side of caution.
“You have people coming in every day, as we're standing here right now, people are presenting themselves to the airport, and the question to you right now is ‘what do we do, now’,” Cuomo said.
In his first public comments about the quarantine order, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Cuomo did not consult him before the announcement, but they've spoken "extensively” since. He also attempted to offer some carefully worded nuance on the policy.
“It is narrowly defined, related to individuals who have come into direct contact with an Ebola victim, and there is additional specificity in terms of allowing the two health commissioners to determine — in the case of New York State — to determine next steps,” said de Blasio.
Pressed again on how the city plans to implement the governors' policy, the mayor said “the details of quarantine will be worked out between the state health department and the city health department. We will have available spaces if needed. We've identified housing, if needed, that can provide quarantine capacity.”
De Blasio made those comments at the Meatball Shop, a West Village restaurant where Dr. Craig Spencer, the region's first and so far only confirmed Ebola patient, dined at days before he fell ill. On Saturday afternoon, a Bronx resident who would only give his name as Skip was having lunch there, unaware of the mayor’s pending arrival, and unfazed by the media attention.
“The lifespan of the Ebola germ, on surfaces, is hours,” he said. “And it’s been days since [Spencer] was here. So right now, I feel pretty safe.”
Meanwhile, New Yorkers outside City Hall said they were getting “mixed messages” from the mayor and the two governors.
Retiree Robert Bragalini of Greenwich Village said Ebola was “a new threat” and that Gov. Cuomo was taking the necessary precautions.
But Dorin Matthews, a social worker from Washington Heights, said the quarantine didn’t come soon enough. Others, like Dave Schiff of the Upper West Side, thought the quarantine was an “overreaction.” Three weeks in isolation, he said, “seems a little crazy.”
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