White House Pushes Back Against States’ Ebola Quarantine Policies
The Obama administration, which is pressing the governors of New York and New Jersey to reverse orders that would quarantine health workers who had contact with Ebola patients, is promising the release of new guidelines in the days ahead. Senior officials have expressed concern about advancing policies that they do not believe are grounded in science.
USA Today:
White House Working On New Ebola Guidelines
The White House stopped short of calling on the governors to reverse their quarantine rules, but administration officials have made clear to the governors that they have concerns with unintended consequences of polices not grounded in science, said a senior administration official, who asked not to be identified to discuss the private communications. The new guidelines are expected to be unveiled in the coming days, the official said.The official added that the administration is consulting with the states as they develop the new rules. (Madhani and Jackson, 10/27)
The Wall Street Journal:
White House Pushes Back On State Ebola Quarantines
The White House pushed back against the governors of New York, New Jersey, Illinois and other states that instituted procedures to forcibly quarantine medical workers returning from West Africa, deepening an emotional debate brought on by recent Ebola cases in the U.S. A senior administration official said Sunday that new federal guidelines under development would protect Americans from imported cases of the disease but not interfere with the flow of U.S. health workers to and from West Africa to fight the epidemic there. (McCain Nelson, West and McKay, 10/27)
The New York Times:
White House Presses States To Reverse Mandatory Ebola Quarantine Orders
The Obama administration has been pushing the governors of New York and New Jersey to reverse their decision ordering all medical workers returning from West Africa who had contact with Ebola patients to be quarantined, an administration official said. But on Sunday both governors, Andrew M. Cuomo of New York and Chris Christie of New Jersey, stood by their decision, saying that the federal guidelines did not go far enough. ... Ever since Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, and Mr. Christie, a Republican, announced the plan at a hastily called news conference on Friday evening, top administration officials have been speaking with Mr. Cuomo daily and have also been in touch with Mr. Christie, trying to get them to rescind the order. But in that time, two more states – Illinois and Florida – announced that they were instituting similar policies. (Santora and Shear, 10/26)
One of the worries related to the state quarantine policies is that they will have a chilling effect on medical workers' willingness to work in West Africa -
The Washington Post:
New York Revises Controversial Policy On Ebola Quarantines Amid Pressure
New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) on Sunday revised a controversial policy to quarantine returning health-care workers from Ebola-stricken nations, under pressure from the Obama administration and medical experts over the aggressive measures. (Kang, 10/26)
Los Angeles Times:
Quarantining Health Workers Could Worsen Ebola Epidemic, Officials Say
Top Obama administration officials publicly warned Sunday that mandatory quarantines in the U.S. of doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers who have traveled to Africa to help Ebola patients risked worsening the epidemic. Mandatory 21-day quarantines, now in place in New York, New Jersey and Illinois, are “a little bit draconian” and could discourage people from helping to fight the disease, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top Ebola expert at the National Institutes of Health, said in several television interviews Sunday. (Serrano, 10/26)
NPR:
Controversy Brews Over States' Moves To Quarantine Health Workers
The face of Ebola in the United States may now be Kaci Hickox. After treating Ebola patients in West Africa ... she was detained at the airport and transferred to an isolation tent next to a hospital, where she remains. New York and New Jersey are ordering that all medical workers returning from Ebola-hit nations to be quarantined at home upon their return. But federal officials say the mandate will likely have a chilling effect on the already troubled effort to recruit U.S. health care workers to fight the epidemic. (Aizenman, 10/27)
Meanwhile, news outlets also examine how Ebola planning and public fears impact hospitals and public health strategies -
The New York Times:
As Ebola Spread In Dallas, New York Honed Protocol
When Craig Spencer, a young doctor just back from treating patients with Ebola in Guinea, fell ill with the virus in New York on Thursday, the paramedics who went to get him were dressed in protective suits. The carefully planned response was a world apart from the scene that unfolded in a Dallas hospital last month when a Liberian man, Thomas Eric Duncan, became the first person to test positive for Ebola in the United States. ... The response also prompted a national reckoning, both by the C.D.C., the federal agency that contributed to the wobbly response in Dallas, and among hospitals nationwide that are now scrambling to prepare, having learned from mistakes in Texas that many say could have happened to any of them. (Tavernise, Hartocollis, LaFraniere and Goodnough, 10/25)
NPR:
For Hospitals, Doing More On Ebola May Mean Less Elsewhere
Eighty-one percent of hospitals have started training their staff in caring for an Ebola patient, according to a survey of 1,039 members of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology. They're the folks who manage infection control in hospitals. ... But more time spent on Ebola can mean less time to handle day-to-day demands, particularly the Enterovirus D-68 outbreak and the approaching flu season. "We have to drop so many other things to take this on," says Jennie Mayfield, president of APIC. (Bruzek, 10/24)
