northjerseycom:
New Jersey officials have quarantined a woman who arrived at Newark Liberty International Airport from a West African country and reported having had contact with Ebola victims, a source familiar with the matter said.
The woman, a U.S. citizen and healthcare worker who began her travel in Sierra Leone, did not show any symptoms. But state officials ordered the quarantine Friday afternoon, the source said, because she reported during questioning having had contact with people who had died of Ebola. She also said she was wearing protective equipment at the time of the contact, according to the person.
Potential downside would be if auto quarantine deters health care volunteers. Africa & world desperately need them:
http://t.co/...
— @SuzyKhimm
.@JohnJHarwood Craig Spencer did everything right, as per protocol. Brave, caring and considerate. Nice model for a doc.
— @DemFromCT
WaPo:
Those in favor of strict quarantines argue that the current federal requirement — that travelers without symptoms take their temperatures regularly and report them to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — are too lax, and that it’s foolish to allow people with potential exposure to Ebola to move freely throughout society.
But those who oppose automatic quarantines insist that proper self-monitoring removes almost any likelihood of transmission, given that Ebola typically is contagious only after symptoms appear. They say that requiring a three-week quarantine would deter some aid workers from traveling to West Africa to fight the unprecedented epidemic. Hundreds of health-care workers have been cycling in and out of Africa to care for Ebola patients .
The Obama administration said it was weighing the dilemma.
More politics and policy below the fold.
Dan Diamond:
Some New Yorkers are worried because Dr. Craig Spencer — the newly diagnosed Ebola patient, who had served with Doctors Without Borders in Guinea — traveled around New York City quite a bit on Tuesday and Wednesday, even as he started to feel a bit ill. For example, he took an Uber on one trip and the subway for several others. He went to a bowling alley the night before he woke up with a 100.3-degree fahrenheit fever.
But when someone’s suffering from Ebola, the virus doesn’t spread easily until the disease has progressed. At this early point in his illness, experts stress, Spencer wouldn’t have been contagious or a threat to those around him.
It’s the fundamental paradox behind Ebola: While it’s an incredibly powerful virus, it’s also hard to catch.
NY Times:
New York City’s first confirmed case of Ebola has raised complicated logistical issues of how to trace the possible contacts of an infected patient in a city of more than 8 million people with a sprawling mass transit system and a large population of workers who commute every day from surrounding suburbs and states.
By the time the patient, Dr. Craig Spencer, an emergency doctor who had recently returned from Guinea, arrived at Bellevue Hospital Center in Manhattan by ambulance on Thursday, he was seriously ill, officials said.
Dr. Spencer complicated the tracing process when he told health officials that just the night before, he had gone bowling in Brooklyn, making the long trip there from his home in Upper Manhattan by subway and then returning in a car hired via the taxi service Uber.
City health officials were suddenly faced with the challenge of finding the right balance between trying to find everyone who might have been exposed and responding to a disease that is transmitted only through direct exposure to bodily fluids.
NY Times:
Governor Cuomo chided Dr. Spencer, who left Guinea on Oct. 14 and landed in New York Oct. 17, for not choosing to quarantine himself.
“He didn’t follow the guidelines for the quarantine — let’s be honest,” Mr. Cuomo said. “It’s too serious a situation to leave it to the honor system.”
Doctors Without Borders, for whom Dr. Spencer was working in Guinea, said that he had followed all of its protocols, including closely monitoring his health and immediately reporting any symptoms.
Federal guidelines do not require automatic quarantine for returning workers who show no symptoms. But Mr. Cuomo said that they were not stringent enough given the potential problems if someone with Ebola were, for instance, to ride the subway in New York. (Dr. Spencer rode the subway on Wednesday, but is not believed to have been contagious then.)
“This region is a little different than most places,” Mr. Cuomo said. “It’s more dense. It’s a little higher pressure. And Governor Christie and I believe in this area, we need guidelines and procedures that go further.”
Mr. Cuomo said of the concept of voluntary quarantine, “It’s almost an oxymoron to me.”
Cuomo is wrong about violating protocol, of course.
Sarah Kliff:
Doctors Without Borders has a five-point procedure for doctors returning from West Africa, to monitor for signs of Ebola.
There is no evidence that Spencer failed to follow these guidelines. Nor is there evidence that requiring doctors to quarantine for three weeks, if they are non-symptomatic, would do anything to stop the disease's spread.
Tara C. Smith:
Ebola Has Come to New York. Here Are 6 Reasons Not to Freak Out, According to an Expert
Tara's the expert, but I did manage a guest quote.
Laurie Garrett:
Since 2008, the Council on Foreign Relations has been collecting data and publishing weekly updates to an interactive map of vaccine-preventable diseases, and the map is now robust, dense with six years of data. One terrible truth stands out: Misinformation and rumors from just one persuasive voice, delivered effectively, can derail entire immunization campaigns and persuade millions of parents to shun vaccinations for their children.
Salt Lake Tribune:
Gov. Gary Herbert announced Thursday that after months of negotiations, he has reached a final agreement with the Obama administration on his novel alternative to expanding Medicaid.
"They are giving us more flexibility than has been given to any other state in America. We are breaking some new ground," Herbert announced in his monthly press conference on KUED.