As everyone knows, last Friday Chris Christie and Andrew Cuomo announced that everyone flying into their two states who had been in contact with Ebola victims in West Africa (or something) would be subjected to a mandatory 21 day quarantine.
Anyone flying into New York and New Jersey after having contact with Ebola sufferers in west Africa will be subjected to a mandatory 21-day quarantine, the governors of the two states announced on Friday, adding that one returning medic had already been detained.
Cuomo, the Democratic governor of New York, said: “We’re just not comfortable with the concept of voluntary quarantine as an effective public health security measure.” He stressed that the CDC had made clear states were entitled to set tougher rules of their own.
Christie, the Republican governor of New Jersey, said he was prepared to take “whatever steps were necessary to ensure the public health” amid the ongoing risk of Ebola. “New Jersey and New York are going to determine the standards of quarantine, since CDC’s guidance is continually changing,” he said. “We need to set a standard for our two states.”
Armed with their new policy, the guvs scooped up their first detainee. Kaci Hickox, a nurse who worked with Doctors Without Borders in Guinea, was grabbed at Newark airport, kept alone in a locked room until she got flustered and had an elevated temperature (measured with a non-contact scanner), then transported to a tent near a hospital. She does not, and never has had, any symptoms of Ebola or other infectious disease.
The details of her incarceration are readily available in the MSM, so I'll jump to the real irony of this policy.......
What is the difference between treating Ebola patients in a hospital in West Africa and treating Ebola patients in Bellevue Hospital in New York city?
That's right, folks, according to the logic behind the Christie/Cuomo quarantine policy, everyone who comes in contact with a patient with active Ebola - no matter where - should immediately be quarantined for 21 days. That would include all the health professionals treating Dr. Craig Spencer at Bellevue.
Obviously that isn't going to happen, but it sure shows the lack of thought that went into the Christie/Cuomo policy.
Christie/Cuomo.... presidential ticket? We can only hope.