The gulf between politicians and scientists over Ebola widened on Sunday as the top U.S. infectious-disease expert warned that the mandatory, 21-day quarantining of medical workers returning from West Africa imposed by several states is unnecessary and could discourage volunteers from going to the hot zone.
“The best way to protect us is to stop the epidemic in Africa, and we need those health care workers, so we do not want to put them in a position where it makes it very, very uncomfortable for them to even volunteer to go,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Meanwhile, Kaci Hickox, the first nurse forcibly quarantined in New Jersey under the state’s new policy, said in a telephone interview with CNN that her isolation at a hospital was “inhumane,” adding- “We have to be very careful about letting politicians make health decisions.”
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Saying the federal health guidelines are inadequate, the governors of New York and New Jersey announced a mandatory quarantine programme Friday for medical workers and other arriving airline passengers who have had contact with Ebola victims in West Africa, and Illinois soon followed suit. Florida Gov. Rick Scott ordered twice-daily monitoring for 21 days of anyone returning from Ebola-stricken areas. Twenty-one days is the incubation period for Ebola.
On Sunday night, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo loosened the restrictions on his state’s quarantine programme, saying health care workers will be quarantined at home and receive twice-daily monitoring from medical professionals. He had said Friday that the workers would be held in a government-regulated facility.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Sunday defended quarantining as necessary to protect the public and predicted it “will become a national policy sooner rather than later.”
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“I don’t believe when you’re dealing with something as serious as this that we can count on a voluntary system,” said Christie, who is expected to run for the Republican nomination for president in 2016.
The Obama administration considers the policy in New York and New Jersey to be “not grounded in science” and has conveyed its concerns to Christie and Cuomo, according to a senior administration official who wasn’t authorized to comment by name and insisted on anonymity.