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Under pressure, N.Y. governor revises Ebola quarantine

 
Kaci Hickox was placed in quarantine in New Jersey after treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone.
Kaci Hickox was placed in quarantine in New Jersey after treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone.
Published Oct. 27, 2014

WASHINGTON — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Sunday revised a controversial policy to quarantine returning health care workers from Ebola-stricken nations, under pressure from the Obama administration and medical experts over the aggressive measures.

Elaborating on the procedures, Cuomo said health care workers who have been in contact with Ebola patients but do not show symptoms of the deadly virus can return to their homes but will be forced to remain there while being monitored by state health officials for symptoms. He said those being monitored can interact with family and friends.

"It's not like this is the toughest duty," Cuomo said in a news conference late Sunday with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.

The change separates the state's quarantine process from that of New Jersey, which has come under scrutiny after the weekend retention of a nurse who showed no symptoms of Ebola. Kaci Hickox, who returned from Sierra Leone after working with Doctors Without Borders, has been held in isolation at a site attached to a New Jersey hospital.

Cuomo said the new policy is more in line with those of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He said people who are quarantined in their homes will be able to interact with family members while public health officials come twice a day to monitor their health.

The fast-moving changes by the state come after a top federal health official and medical experts earlier Sunday sharply criticized New York and New Jersey's mandatory quarantines of aid workers returning from Ebola-stricken nations, saying the strict mandates could hamper overall efforts to combat the deadly virus at its epicenters.

But even with growing pressure to reverse the mandates, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie defended the policies.

The conflicting interests of federal and state officials highlight a conundrum for the United States as it takes a leading role in fighting the contagion of Ebola in West Africa while also trying to calm rising anxieties about the potential spread of the disease at home.

Cuomo insisted the state would help alleviate any burdens posed by the home-based 21-day quarantine for health care workers returning from West Africa. If a person loses pay because of workdays missed, the governor said, he or she will be compensated and state officials will talk to employers if necessary.

If a person arrives with no symptoms and had no direct contact with Ebola patients, there will be no home confinement.

"My personal preference is to err on the side of caution," Cuomo said, saying he and de Blasio will urge New York medical experts to encourage hospital staff to volunteer in Ebola efforts in West Africa. "I understand that some people believe the 21-day home quarantine is a burden. I would ask for their cooperation and understanding and remember what we are trying to balance."

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The Obama administration said Sunday that it had expressed concerns to Cuomo and Christie about the "unintended consequences" of the quarantines and how they could deter volunteers from deploying to West Africa, where the spread of Ebola continues to rage.

On several Sunday news talk shows, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, strongly objected to the quarantine policies. He said sending American volunteers to countries such as Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone is vital to efforts to contain the virus there, and he warned that stringent isolation policies for the aid workers upon their return would hamper the global fight against Ebola.

"The best way to protect us is to stop the epidemic in Africa, and we need those health care workers, so we do not want to put them in a position where it makes it very, very uncomfortable for them to even volunteer to go," Fauci said on Fox News Sunday.

He recommended voluntary monitoring, not isolation, for returning health care workers, stressing that Ebola cannot be spread unless symptoms appear.

The White House plans to announce new guidelines for returning health care workers to help prevent imported cases of Ebola while also encouraging volunteers to combat the disease abroad, an administration official said, adding that it would consult with states on new federal policies.

On Sunday, President Barack Obama convened his top health and security advisers and directed them to create policies that would help mitigate the risk of additional Ebola cases in the United States. The meeting included Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Secretary of State John Kerry, and Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell, who advised the president on considerations for new measures for returning health care workers.

"The President underscored that the steps we take must be guided by the best medical science, as informed by our most knowledgeable public health experts," said a White House statement. "He also emphasized that these measures must recognize that health care workers are an indispensable element of our effort to lead the international community to contain and ultimately end this outbreak at its source, and should be crafted so as not to unnecessarily discourage those workers from serving."

Christie and Cuomo argued Sunday that the potential threat of spreading the disease was too great to leave to self-monitoring by returning aid workers. Already hundreds of volunteers have deployed and hundreds more American health care workers, military service members and humanitarian workers are expected to join them in coming weeks.