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First Person In Mandatory Quarantine Tests Negative For Ebola
By
Ben Yakas
Published Oct 25, 2014
Modified Oct 25, 2014
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Oct 25, 2014
Modified Oct 25, 2014
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Late Friday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and NJ Gov. Chris Christie announced a mandatory 21-day quarantine for travelers arriving at JFK and Newark Liberty airports who may have had contact with Ebola-infected patients overseas. A health care worker who had been in contact with Ebola patients in West Africa was the first person to be quarantined at Newark yesterday; officials now say that the woman, who remains in isolation at University Hospital in Newark, has tested negative for Ebola.
The mandatory quarantine policy has already spurred a lot of controversy, especially because it seems to discount the procedures and guidelines suggested by health professionals, the CDC, and groups like Doctors Without Borders. The Times reports that volunteers and doctors are already nervous about the ramifications: "While a few of those interviewed said an overabundance of caution was welcome, the vast majority said that restrictions like those adopted by New York and New Jersey could cripple volunteers’ efforts at the front lines of the epidemic."
Other doctors and workers with nonprofit groups told similar things to the Wall Street Journal. Dr. Rick Sacra, who contracted Ebola in Liberia and was flown back to the United States to be treated in September, told the Times that this new policy would reduce the amount of people volunteering to go overseas:
He said many doctors and nurses who volunteered would spend about three weeks in Africa and then return to their regular jobs. The requirement that they be quarantined at home upon their return “will effectively double the burden on those people, on the loss of productive time,” Dr. Sacra said.
“They are the authorities,” he added. “They have their rationale. They sometimes can’t base their decisions only on the science.”
People are also criticizing Christie, and especially, Cuomo for stoking the fires of panic. At a joint press conference with Mayor de Blasio Thursday, Cuomo stressed patience and calm. But at yesterday's quarantine presser, the rhetoric was decidedly more, well, panicky:
The risk, Mr. Cuomo said, was grave. Offering an ominous hypothetical, he raised the precise situation that the mayor and the city’s health commissioner had tried to play down the night before: the danger of Ebola spreading through the subway system.
“In a region like this,” Mr. Cuomo said, “you go out one, two or three times, you ride the subway, you ride a bus, you could affect hundreds and hundreds of people.”
On top of that, this may cause more rifts between Cuomo and de Blasio: city officials were not consulted about the quarantine policy, and the city’s health commissioner, Dr. Mary Bassett, was reportedly "furious" about the unilateral announcement.
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Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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