[NYT] The Champ 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 on Sunday.
States have no rights under the Champ regime. I thought everyone knew that.
But 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.
What "federal guidelines" ?
At the same time, the first person to be forced into isolation under the new protocols, Kaci Hickox, a nurse returning from Sierra Leone, planned to mount a legal challenge to the quarantine order. Despite having no symptoms, she has been kept under quarantine at a hospital in New Jersey, where she has been confined to a tent equipped with a portable toilet and no shower. On Sunday, she spoke to CNN about the way she has been treated, describing it as “inhumane.”
"Inhumane"...? I know a few people who have deployed to Iraq an Afghanistan [for a lot longer than 21 days] who might disagree with her definition of "inhumane."
Ms. Hickox would not be in the U.S. today if I were in charge: she'd be at a mandatory isolation facility for health care workers who have had contact with Ebola patients.
That isolation facility would be in west Africa.
It would be comfortable: good beds, clean linens (the workers would change their own sheets), good food, internet, movies, and so on. They'd have light work to do in their own rooms -- paperwork and the like. They'd receive a month's salary for this based on their own country's average wages for health care workers.
And they wouldn't leave for 28 days.
If you volunteer to take care of Ebola patients, stay in quarantine for a month. We'll pay you and take care of you. But you don't come home to the U.S., or Europe, or wherever, until we know you're clean. |
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