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[stem-ebola] NYC & NJ retract Ebola policy under pressure from WH & MSF
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Under Pressure, NYC's Cuomo Says Ebola Quarantines Can Be Spent at Home
Facing fierce resistance from the White House and medical experts to a
strict new mandatory quarantine policy, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said Sunday
night that medical workers who had contact with Ebola patients in West
Africa but did not show symptoms of the disease would be allowed to
remain at home and would receive compensation for lost income.
Mr. Cuomo’s decision capped a frenzied weekend of behind-the-scenes
pleas from administration officials, who urged him and Gov. Chris
Christie of New Jersey to reconsider the mandatory quarantine they had
announced on Friday. Aides to President Obama also asked other governors
and mayors to follow a policy based on science, seeking to stem a steady
movement toward more stringent measures in recent days at the state
level.
The announcement by Mr. Cuomo seemed intended to draw a sharp contrast —
both in tone and in fact — to the policy’s implementation in New Jersey,
where a nurse from Maine who arrived Friday from Sierra Leone was
swiftly quarantined in a tent set up inside a Newark hospital, with a
portable toilet but with no shower.
[...]
After Mr. Cuomo’s announcement, [NJ Governor Chris Christie] said on
Twitter at 10:31 p.m. that, under protocols announced on Wednesday, New
Jersey residents not displaying symptoms would also be allowed to
quarantine in their homes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/27/nyregion/ebola-quarantine.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=LedeSum&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
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MSF nurse 'slams' NJ's Ebola quarantine policy; Christie defends
measures as necessary role of gov't
The first nurse to be isolated under New Jersey’s new Ebola rules has
slammed governor Chris Christie’s decision to quarantine health workers
returning from west Africa, saying he is “not a doctor” and calling the
policy “poorly planned” and “not evidence-based” .
As state and federal officials scrambled to form a coherent policy on
the issue, Kaci Hickox, a volunteer nurse for Doctors Without Borders,
who has tested negative for the virus, described her treatment as
inhumane and arbitrary.
Hickox first criticised her detention in a piece for the Dallas Morning
News on Saturday. In response, [NJ governor Chris Christie] said Hickox
was “obviously ill” and added: “I’m sorry if in any way she was
inconvenienced, but the inconvenience that could occur from having folks
who are symptomatic and ill out and amongst the public is a much, much
greater concern of mine.”
On Sunday [Christie] defended his decision to impose 21-day quarantines
even in cases when no symptoms of infection have been shown. Speaking to
Fox News, Christie said: “I don’t think when you’re dealing with
something as serious as this you can count on voluntary system. This is
the government’s job.”
The likely candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016
added: “I think this is a policy that will become a national policy
sooner rather than later.”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/26/ebola-christie-quarantine-west-africa-monitor-symptoms-airport