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-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
No mandatory Ebola quarantine for health workers coming to Washington D.C. area
2014-10-26
[WAPO] One day after governors in New York, New Jersey and Illinois imposed a mandatory 21-day quarantine on medical workers returning from Ebola-stricken countries in West Africa, public health officials in the District, Maryland and Virginia did not follow suit Saturday, intensifying a national debate over how to prevent the spread of the disease.

Health officials are working to develop a consistent approach for the area around the nation’s capital. Joxel Garcia, director of the D.C. Department of Health, said that a mandatory quarantine was not scientifically justified and could have a chilling effect on the medical personnel, many of them volunteers, needed to treat Ebola patients at home and overseas.
So D.C. becomes an Ebola incubator? Actually, the tourist season is pretty much over. Thank you Joxel.
Posted by:Besoeker

#12  One way to thin the herd in D.C...

3dc if Ebola flares up there, all these Congressmen and Senators (and their staffs) will run for home---infecting the entire country.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2014-10-26 18:02  

#11  Free Ebola: Obama Demands End to State Ebola Quarantines. Link
Posted by: Besoeker   2014-10-26 17:45  

#10  One way to thin the herd in D.C...
Posted by: 3dc   2014-10-26 17:33  

#9  Can you quarantine the entire D.C.?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2014-10-26 14:22  

#8  "No mandatory Ebola quarantine for health workers coming to Washington D.C. area"

Next up: All returning ebola health workers will choose to fly in through Dulles. :-(
Posted by: Barbara   2014-10-26 13:45  

#7  Florida Governor Scott yesterday issued an executive order tightening surveillance &/or quarantine for inbound travelers from the Ebola Hot Zone. PDF here.
CBS Miami adds:
In statement released Saturday Scott said, “This executive order will give the Florida Department of Health the authority they need to conduct 21-day health monitoring and risk assessments for all those who have returned or will return to Florida from the CDC designated Ebola-affected areas of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. We have asked the CDC to identify the risk levels of all returning individuals from these areas, but they have not provided that information.”
Scott went onto say they are in the process of trying to make four people who returned to Florida be under the health evaluation.
“Therefore, we are moving quickly to require the four individuals who have returned to Florida already – and anyone in the future who will return to Florida from an Ebola area – to take part in twice daily 21-day health evaluations with DOH personnel,” said Scott.
Scott said the monitoring will help them prevent the spread of the deadly disease. While we do not have an Ebola case in Florida, Scott said the order is out of abundance of caution as well as the product of lack of action from the CDC.
“I want to be clear that we are taking this aggressive action at the state level out of an abundance of caution in the absence of much-needed Ebola risk classification information from the CDC. We are using what information is available to our Department of Health through the CDC’s Epi-X web-based system, which monitors individuals who travel to areas with infectious diseases, including Ebola. Using this system, we know that four individuals have already returned to Florida after traveling to Ebola-affected areas. Following the news of Dr. Craig Spencer testing positive for Ebola in New York, DOH began working to identify anyone who has already returned to Florida after traveling to an Ebola area and is aggressively investigating how much risk these individuals pose for contracting the disease,” said Scott.
The governor went on to say if they determine a traveler is at “high risk’ of contracting the disease.” The Florida Department of Health may put the person under mandatory quarantine.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418    2014-10-26 13:30  

#6  Maybe Eric Holder can intervene and set all quarantined health care workers in NJ, NY and IL FREE AT LAST. That's what I would call 'leadership' /sarc
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418    2014-10-26 10:52  

#5  Darrel Issa: State quarantines are due to 'absence of federal leadership'
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418    2014-10-26 10:46  

#4  Obama is said to be ready for quarantine at the nearest golf resort after hugging Ebola nurse.
Posted by: Airandee   2014-10-26 10:38  

#3  quarantine people when they’re not symptomatic Uh, that's the meaning of 'quarantine'
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418    2014-10-26 10:29  

#2  Reuters: "I don't want to be directly criticizing the decision that was made but we have to be careful that there are unintended consequences," Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said of the measures imposed by New York, New Jersey and Illinois.

"The best way to stop this epidemic is to help the people in West Africa, we do that by sending people over there, not only from the U.S.A. but from other places," Fauci told NBC's "Meet the Press," adding such quarantines were "a little bit draconian."
...
But New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, asked to respond to Fauci’s comment that it is not good science to quarantine people when they’re not symptomatic, said, "I don’t believe that when you’re dealing with something as serious as this that we can count on a voluntary system.”

“This is government’s job. If anything else, the government’s job is to protect the safety and health of our citizens,” he told the "Fox News Sunday" program.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418    2014-10-26 10:28  

#1  It's a feature, not a bug.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2014-10-26 09:44  

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