What do you do if you're New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and you've been
publicly embarrassed by a high profile and highly stupid policy that you implemented on the fly, and badly bungled? Of course, you
go on offense.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie tried to stamp out criticism Tuesday of his policy to quarantine health care workers returning from Ebola hot zones, describing his rule as "common sense" and vowing that he won't move "an inch" on the standards his state has set forth. […]
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, said on NBC the policy was "draconian" and not rooted in science. Others, including Fauci, expressed concern the policy would become a disincentive for people wanting to go and help combat the problem in West Africa, fearing they'd be quarantined as soon as they returned to the United States.
Christie said he applauds those volunteers, but disagreed that New Jersey's policy was too much to ask, calling his critics "hyperbolic."
Right. It's the medical experts who've been working on this disease for years who are hyperbolic over Ebola. Meanwhile, it's
becoming clearer that Christie's quarantine policy declaration on Friday, along with New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, was a total shambles. Neither state's public health agencies were involved in the decision-making on the policy and, once it had to be implemented, it quickly became apparent that they were operating on the fly. Christie has been scrambling to deflect criticism, including declaring that nurse Kaci Hickox was detained on the CDC's orders, not his. And after reversing his mandatory 21-day quarantine order in the case of Hickox, he's using his usual bullying bluster to try to assert that it was never his policy in the first place.
Christie's Ebola panic is looking even more politically-driven by the reality that there is no reason to panic over Ebola in the U.S. The second Dallas nurse, Amber Vinson, to be diagnosed with Ebola has been virus free for a week and is leaving Emory University Hospital. What's more, American's are confident that the federal government can handle the disease response—7 in 10 in a new CNN poll say the government can stop and epidemic, and 54 percent "believe the federal government is doing a 'good job' in addressing the disease."
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Christie took on the wrong fight—and picked on the wrong nurse—this time. He can't bully and bluster his way out of looking like an over-reacting idiot on this one.