Quarantine was not caused by irrational fear. It was a result of irresponsible behavior of health care professionals.
Back in August, in the course of catching up with the happenings in my oldest daughter’s life, she told me about a dinner she had with a friend of hers who had just been evacuated out of Liberia. Her friend had been doing missions work helping with the Ebola crisis. She had to leave because the crisis was getting out of hand. Her friend met Dr. Brantley before he contracted Ebola. She shook his hand and everything, my daughter explained. Being aware of the 21 day incubation period, I asked how long before their dinner had her friend left Liberia. The week before my daughter replied. At this point I was a bit puzzled. How could she be having dinner with my daughter within a week of being in an Ebola hot zone? Was my daughter at risk? Was the rest of my family at risk? I asked my daughter what her friend was doing now. She flew off to Japan on a another missions trip. How could that be? Isn’t that risky just sending someone fresh out of an Ebola hot zone off to another country without knowing if she was infected with Ebola? It was at that point that I knew that Ebola was coming to America, despite President Obama’s assurances to the contrary.
Fast forward about two months. Predictably, Ebola had come to America. Thomas Duncan had been walking around for two days with symptoms . The authorities asked Mr. Duncan’s family to voluntarily enter quarantine. When they objected, the state of Texas issued a quarantine order. No one, including the CDC, opposed this. Then nurse, Nina Pham contracted Ebola. The authorities put Ms. Pham’s boyfriend in isolation. Again, the CDC did not object. Then, nurse Amber Vinson, preparing for a trip to Ohio, had a fever of 99.5, and the CDC said go ahead get on a plane and go to Ohio. She was allowed to fly back to Texas as well. Then after she was diagnosed with Ebola, her family was quarantined, complete with crime scene tape around their house and police stationed at the end of their driveway. A business Ms. Vinson visited was closed and disinfected. All of the passengers who had ridden on the planes with and after her had to be tracked down. Two schools that employed one of these airline passengers had to be closed and disinfected. Again the CDC said nothing. Finally, Dr. Craig Spencer, night before he was diagnosed with Ebola decided to have a night on the town in New York. He rode the subway and in taxi cabs. He ate in restaurants. He even bowled. After he was diagnosed, his girlfriend and two other close friends were put in isolation. Businesses were closed and disinfected. Again the CDC remained silent.
After it became apparent that Thomas Duncan had taken advantage of Ebola’s 21 day incubation period to sneak into the country, there were calls for a travel ban from the Ebola affected countries. We were told that the best way to fight Ebola here was “to fight it at its source.” A travel ban would make it harder to get aid workers to Africa and put us more at risk. The other explanation here is that with people side-stepping the ban that it increases the risk of infected people getting into the country. Attempting to keep infected people out would make us less safe according to the Obama administration. The administration also has said that a quarantine is not necessary for people entering the as long as they don’t exhibit symptoms.
The day after Dr. Spencer's Ebola diagnosis, Gov. Chris Christie had seen enough of health care professionals potentially infecting the general public. The state of New Jersey already had issue a quarantine order for NBC News reporter Nancy Snyderman and her crew after they failed to honor a voluntary quarantine. If the Obama administration was not going to act, he would have to. He instituted a 21 day quarantine for any health care workers arriving from the affected countries. He had nurse Kari Hickox stopped at the airport and put in quarantine. She objected saying that she passed a meaningless Ebola test (An Ebola test has no utility until the patient is symptomatic.) and that she has no symptoms. The Obama administration agreed saying that the quarantine was not supported by science. The whole point of quarantine is to determine whether or not someone is infected. For Ms. Hickox, it will take until November 10th to determine this, so she is rightfully in quarantine even though she has no symptoms.
If you look at these events more closely, you will notice a pattern emerge. The Obama administration has said nothing about the quarantine of anyone who is potentially infected if the exposure occurred in the United States. However, they have vehemently opposed any restriction in the form of a ban or quarantine of people potential infected abroad. Their opposition here has nothing to do with science but rather it is about politics. The risks of potentially infected people is the same no matter where they were infected. They have more or less admitted this when President Obama said that we can not "seal ourselves off" and that we would see "more sporadic cases." The real reason for their opposition became clear after Kari Hickox was quarantined. They want the health workers to be able to travel to and from Africa easily. They are afraid imposing any restrictions on flights or instituting quarantines on health workers will cause them change their mind about going to Africa. The Obama administration understands the science supports quarantine. This is why the Pentagon will be putting soldiers coming out of Liberia into quarantine.
Really what they are trying to do is allow the health workers to go against the science and monitor themselves so that they have an easier time volunteering. They decided for us that the risk these workers pose to the public during those 21 days is worth having doctors continue to go to Africa. I can see the logic here to a point. The assumption in giving health workers the ability to self-monitor is that their training will allow them to make better decisions about when to go out in public during the 21 days. However, with Ms. Vinson and Dr. Spencer this did not prove true. Amber Vinson should have known when she called the CDC that Ebola was a possibility. She just used the CDC as an excuse to get on the plane anyway. Dr. Spencer had to have some idea that his "fatigue" two days before his diagnosis had something to do with Ebola. The fact that he lied about his travels the night before his diagnosis reveals that. So, at this point, the government needs to put the safety of US citizens over the needs of foreign countries. Thank you Gov. Christie for starting a debate that other states have now joined. Hopefully, you are correct that your policy will eventually be instituted nationally.
