US governors and Army go own way on Ebola quarantines

Associated Press

NEWARK, N.J.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday recommended new restrictions for people at highest risk for coming down with the virus, and symptom monitoring for those at lower risk. But some state governors and even an Army commander have gone beyond that guidance.

As contradictory state policies proliferate in response to Ebola fears, the CDC’s recommendations mark an effort to create a national standard, one that would protect public health without discouraging people from helping fight its spread overseas.

The CDC now says even if they have no symptoms and are not considered contagious, people should stay away from commercial transportation or public gatherings if they have been in direct contact with the bodily fluids of someone sick with Ebola — say, by touching their fluids without protective gear, or by suffering an injury from a contaminated needle.

Absent that direct contact, simply caring for Ebola patients or traveling in West Africa doesn’t warrant quarantine conditions, the public health agency said.

But quarantines are determined state by state in the U.S., and the CDC is only empowered to issue guidelines. And even within the federal government, authorities were improvising Monday: A U.S. Army commander in Italy said he and all his troops returning from Liberia would remain in isolation for 21 days, even though he feels they face no risk and show no symptoms.

Kaci Hickox, a nurse who volunteered with Doctors Without Borders in Africa was released after being forced to spend her weekend in a tent in New Jersey upon her return, despite showing no symptoms other than an elevated temperature she blamed on “inhumane” treatment at Newark International Airport.

The governors of New York and New Jersey defended their quarantine policies as necessary precautions in dealing with a virus that already has killed nearly half of the more than 10,000 people infected this year in West Africa. Maj. Gen. Darryl Williams told The Associated Press that the decision to isolate returning troops was taken to ensure their family members’ comfort, even though none is showing symptoms.