NEW YORK/WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – New York and New Jersey will automatically quarantine medical workers returning from Ebola-hit West African countries and the U.S. government is considering the same step after a doctor who treated patients in Guinea came back infected, officials said yesterday.
The steps announced by the two states, which go beyond the current restrictions being imposed by President Barack Obama’s administration on travelers from Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea, came as medical detectives tried to retrace the steps in New York City of Dr. Craig Spencer, who tested positive for Ebola on Thursday.
The new policy applies to medical workers returning from the region through John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey. In the first instance of the new move, a female healthcare worker who had treated patients in West Africa and arrived at the Newark, New Jersey, airport was ordered into quarantine.
She had no symptoms upon arrival at the airport but developed a fever Friday evening, the New Jersey Health Department said in a statement. She is now in isolation and being evaluated at University Hospital in Newark. The agency gave no further details.
“Voluntary quarantine is almost an oxymoron,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said. “We’ve seen what happens. … You ride a subway. You ride a bus. You could infect hundreds and hundreds of people.”
Cuomo, who appeared at a news conference with the governor of neighboring New Jersey, Chris Christie, had earlier in the day sought to reassure New Yorkers that Ebola’s threat was limited the day after Spencer tested positive for the virus.
In Washington, Obama also sought to reassure a worried public with an Oval Office hug of Dallas nurse Nina Pham, who was declared Ebola-free on Friday after catching the virus from a Liberian patient who died.
As concerns over the possible spread of Ebola eased, U.S. stocks closed out their best week since January 2013.
But Republican lawmakers, many of whom for weeks have called for a tougher response to Ebola, continued their criticism of the administration at a congressional hearing.
Cuomo said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had agreed that individual states have the right to exceed federal requirements.
