Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said quarantines may discourage health workers from traveling to West Africa.(Photo: Alex Wong, Getty Images)
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The White House on Sunday said that it is working on new guidelines for healthcare workers returning from Ebola-stricken states, according to a senior administration official.
The decision comes as governors in Illinois, New Jersey and New York announced over the weekend they were instituting quarantines for aid works returning Ebola-stricken West Africa.
The White House stopped short of calling on the governors to reverse their quarantine rules. But administration officials have made clear to the governors 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.
Earlier, other aides to President Obama criticized the decisions by three states to quarantine people who are returning from Ebola-stricken West Africa.
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and United Nations ambassador Samantha Power said quarantines may discourage health workers from traveling to West Africa to help block the disease at its source.
"If you put everyone in one basket, even people who are clearly no threat, then we have the problem of the disincentive of people that we need," Fauci said on ABC's This Week. "Let's not forget the best way to stop this epidemic and protect America is to stop it in Africa, and you can really help stopping it in Africa if we have our people, our heroes, the health care workers, go there and help us to protect America."
Power, who is traveling in West Africa, told NBC News that quarantine plans in New York, New Jersey and Illinois are "haphazard and not well thought out," and could discourage health workers from going to West Africa in the first place.
"We cannot take measures here that are going to impact our ability to flood the zone," Power said. "We have to find the right balance between addressing the legitimate fears that people have and encouraging and incentivizing these heroes."
Officials in New Jersey, New York and Illinois, who acted in the wake of a new Ebola case in New York, said they cannot rely on people to quarantine themselves.
"I don't think when you're dealing with something as serious as this you can count on a voluntary system," said New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, speaking on Fox News Sunday. "This is the government's job."
He added: "I think this is a policy that will become a national policy sooner or later."
Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican locked in a tough battle for re-election next month, on Saturday ordered twice daily monitoring for anyone returning from places affected by Ebola for 21 days.
New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, a Democrat, also defended the quarantine policy Sunday in a radio interview, according to the New York Times. Cuomo said that it was important to require people to monitor themselves by law. "If you had someone who didn't want to cooperate, you can enforce it legally, there's no doubt about that," he said on Radio 103.9.
In New Jersey, a nurse who worked had been working with Doctors Without Borders with Ebola patients in Sierra Leone became the first person to be quarantined under the new regulations when she arrived at Newark Liberty International Airport on Friday.
The nurse, Kaci Hickox, criticized the way her case has been handled, raising concerns from humanitarian and human rights groups over unclear policies for the newly launched quarantine program.
Norman Siegel, Hickox's attorney, told CNN he will go to court seeking a hearing, saying her quarantine was based on fear. "People are panicking, and people are scared," he said.
Hickox said in a telephone interview with CNN that her confinement to an isolation tent at University Hospital in Newark hospital was "inhumane" and akin to being in prison. She said she has no symptoms and tested negative for Ebola.
"This is an extreme that is really unacceptable, and I feel like my basic human rights have been violated," Hickox said on CNN's "State of the Union."
Hickox wrote a first-person account for the Dallas Morning News, which was posted on the paper's website Saturday. Her preliminary tests for Ebola came back negative.
"This is not a situation I would wish on anyone, and I am scared for those who will follow me," Hickox wrote of her quarantine. "I am scared about how health care workers will be treated at airports when they declare that they have been fighting Ebola in West Africa. I am scared that, like me, they will arrive and see a frenzy of disorganization, fear and, most frightening, quarantine. … The U.S. must treat returning health care workers with dignity and humanity."
The quarantine measures were announced after New York physician Craig Spencer was hospitalized and tested positive for Ebola last Thursday, following his return from treating patients in Guinea with the group Doctors Without Borders. In the week after his return but before becoming symptomatic he rode the subway, went bowling and ate at a restaurant.
Hospital officials said on Saturday that he was experiencing gastrointestinal symptoms and "entering the next phase of his illness."
Republican members of Congress have also called on the Obama administration to enact more travel restrictions into and out of West Africa.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, told CNN's State of the Union that state officials are taking action in the absence of federal leadership.
"Governors of both parties are reacting because there isn't a trust in the leadership of this administration," Issa said.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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