Shifting stances and a lack of clear standards from the governors of New York and New Jersey over their Ebola quarantine policy left critics and even some allies questioning on Monday whether the two men had fully worked through the details before they announced it.
In New York, local health officials said on Monday that they had not yet received any details of the three-day-old Ebola quarantine policy they are charged with enforcing.
In New Jersey, requests for such specifics were met with six sentences from a Friday press release.
The governors, Andrew M. Cuomo of New York and Chris Christie of New Jersey, said on Friday that they were imposing their strict new mandatory quarantine because standards from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had been constantly shifting.
But on Monday, faced with criticism from the nurse who had been detained in Newark as the test case of the new quarantine, Mr. Christie said the C.D.C. - not New Jersey - had been responsible for hospitalizing her and giving her the Ebola test in the first place.
By Monday, the White House, the United Nations secretary general and civil-liberties groups, with varying degrees of anger, were accusing Mr. Christie and Mr. Cuomo of putting politics ahead of science, at the risk of deterring health care workers needed to treat the disease at its origin in Africa.
The governors, who recently appeared side by side to declare their combined resolve and strategy against the Islamic State, said on Friday that they needed clear policy to combat hysteria. But three days of apparent reversals - though both governors said there had been none - only helped to fan public confusion. (And a re-released, but inaccurate, transcript only compounded matters.)
'Unfortunately, this is a moving target,' said Dr. Gale R. Burstein, the health commissioner in Erie County, in western New York. 'I really need to see something in writing to be able to determine what I think about their policy.' She added, 'Right now it's just a rumor.'
On Monday night, Mr. Cuomo's office released an 11-page order from the acting state health commissioner, Dr. Howard A. Zucker, outlining the quarantine protocols. Dr. Zucker planned to present the protocols to county health officials on Tuesday.
The governors share not only a border but also a combativeness and a special relationship, which comes across as a nonaggression pact, if not an outright alliance: Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, has refrained from commenting on the Christie administration's role in the George Washington Bridge approach lane closings; Mr. Christie, the head of the Republican Governors Association, has declined entreaties to campaign for Mr. Cuomo's Republican opponent in the Nov. 4 election.
Mr. Christie first issued an executive order on Ebola last Wednesday, and in a news conference that day said he was content with the screening and policies in place. Less than 48 hours later, he and Mr. Cuomo, at a hastily arranged news conference, dismissed federal standards as shifting and inadequate.
In what Mr. Christie called 'tough, common-sense policy,' the governors on Friday outlined a mandatory 21-day quarantine for travelers who had direct contact with Ebola patients.
But on Monday, after fierce criticism from a nurse detained in Newark, Mr. Christie announced she was being released after four days of quarantine. He said that Maine, where she lives, would determine her treatment.
Revealing a new policy detail, Mr. Christie said that the nurse - who registered a fever on a forehead thermometer at the airport, but did not when her temperature was taken orally - could be released because she had not had a fever for 24 hours.
New Jersey officials would not say if 24 hours was the new standard for releasing someone from the hospital. Instead, the governor's office issued a news release on Sunday and two on a Monday declaring that the policy had not changed.
Mr. Christie was defiant. 'I didn't reverse my decision,' he told reporters as he campaigned with Gov. Rick Scott, a fellow Republican, in Florida. 'Why are you saying I reversed my decision? If she was continuing to be ill, she'd have to stay.'
Mr. Cuomo's hard line alongside Mr. Christie on Friday came a day after he joined Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City to urge calm.
Mr. Cuomo indicated at the outset that high-risk travelers not yet showing symptoms faced the prospect of quarantine 'at a government-regulated facility.' On Sunday night, he put aside talk of confining asymptomatic people to institutions, and said those travelers would be able to stay in their own homes. But he, too, insisted on Sunday and again on Monday that he had not relaxed the quarantine policy.
Late Sunday night, his communications director, Melissa DeRosa, sent what she described as a 'word for word' transcript of a portion of the news conference on Friday, which she said showed Mr. Cuomo had intended all along for the quarantine to take place primarily in private homes.
The transcript, however, which she also posted on Twitter, omitted language showing the governor agreed with Mr. Christie that some patients would be held in 'designated facilities.'
In New Jersey, Nancy Foster Muñoz, a nurse and Republican assemblywoman whose son is a medical resident at the Newark hospital where the nurse was detained, said she understood that the governors had been reacting to outsize public panic.
But she said federal health officials' recommendations were better balanced against the risk of deterring health workers from going to Africa, 'because that's where we need to stop this.'
Releasing the nurse after 24 hours, she said, did not meet the quarantine standards announced on Friday. But she agreed with the decision: 'We can see that they're adjusting the policy as they go along. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.'
'I think maybe they learned something from this nurse,' she said, 'which is that if she's afebrile, asymptomatic, maybe that's enough.'
Claudia A. Edwards, the public health director in Broome County, N.Y., along the Pennsylvania border, said she had emailed the State Health Department on Friday seeking guidance on complications that would result from quarantine. By Monday afternoon, she had not heard back. 'This is new to all of us,' she said.
Mr. Cuomo, meanwhile, all but said quarantine could be a time for rest and relaxation.
'Enjoy your family, enjoy your kids, enjoy your friends,' said the governor, also a recently published author. 'Read a book. Read my book.'
Entities 0 Name: Christie Count: 11 1 Name: Cuomo Count: 9 2 Name: New Jersey Count: 6 3 Name: New York Count: 4 4 Name: Newark Count: 3 5 Name: Africa Count: 2 6 Name: Andrew M. Cuomo Count: 1 7 Name: White House Count: 1 8 Name: Bill de Blasio Count: 1 9 Name: Republican Governors Association Count: 1 10 Name: Erie County Count: 1 11 Name: Dr. Howard A. Zucker Count: 1 12 Name: Broome County Count: 1 13 Name: United Nations Count: 1 14 Name: Chris Christie Count: 1 15 Name: New York City Count: 1 16 Name: Nancy Foster Muñoz Count: 1 17 Name: Republican Count: 1 18 Name: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Count: 1 19 Name: Claudia A. Edwards Count: 1 20 Name: Pennsylvania Count: 1 21 Name: Florida Count: 1 22 Name: Dr. Gale R. Burstein Count: 1 23 Name: N.Y. Count: 1 24 Name: George Washington Bridge Count: 1 25 Name: Rick Scott Count: 1 26 Name: State Health Department Count: 1 27 Name: Melissa DeRosa Count: 1 28 Name: Islamic State Count: 1 29 Name: Dr. Zucker Count: 1 30 Name: Maine Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/1t6cMLs Title: Under Pressure, Cuomo Says Ebola Quarantines Can Be Spent at Home Description: Facing fierce resistance from the White House and medical experts to a strict new mandatory quarantine policy, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Sunday night that medical workers who had contact with Ebola patients in West Africa but did not show symptoms of the disease would be allowed to remain at home and would receive compensation for lost income.
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