The tough-talking governors of New York and New Jersey got sick of waiting for the feds to impose mandatory quarantines for high-risk travelers exposed to Ebola — so on Friday they did it themselves.
Govs. Cuomo and Chris Christie announced that, effective immediately, anyone traveling into Kennedy and Newark airports from countries plagued by the disease must spend 21 days in isolation at home or hospitals if they had direct contact with patients.
The new measure far exceeds the self-monitoring recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and comes a day after Dr. Craig Spencer was diagnosed as the New York City’s first Ebola victim.
Cuomo and Christie were stunned to learn that Spencer spent a week roaming around town — going to restaurants and riding the subway — before rushing to Bellevue Hospital with a fever and other symptoms.
“A voluntary Ebola quarantine is not enough. This is too serious a public health situation to leave to the honor system of compliance. I think increasing the screening procedures is necessary
and reduces the risk to New Yorkers and people in New Jersey,” Cuomo said during a joint news conference in Manhattan.
In other developments Friday:
- A nurse arriving at Newark Airport from West Africa was the first person quarantined under the new rule — and had developed a fever Friday night.
- A city-hired biohazard cleaning crew disinfected Spencer’s apartment on West 147th Street in Harlem, tossing items — such as bed linens, towels, food and garbage — that could be contaminated by bodily fluids. “We do not believe there are any bodily fluids in the apartment because the patient reported no vomiting or diarrhea,” the Health Department said.
- Health Department workers raced to clear all of the spots that Spencer visited around town, including the Blue Bottle Coffee stand on the High Line, The Meatball Shop on Greenwich Avenue and The Gutter bar and bowling alley in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
- Spencer remained in stable condition in an isolation room at Bellevue, chatting away on his cellphone and watching TV.
“He was working to end the Ebola epidemic at its source and is truly a courageous man,” Mayor de Blasio said. - Spencer’s Harlem neighbors were spooked by the ordeal. A man across the hall said some of his relatives fled the building. A letter carrier was so nervous, he wore gloves and a mask, even though the virus does not spread through the air. “I’m not taking any chances,” he said.
The night before the Cuomo-Christie quarantine was announced, a doctor who had been treating Ebola patients in Liberia flew into JFK and spent the night at an airport hotel before traveling on to California.
Colin Bucks, a professor at Stanford University’s medical school, arrived on a Royal Moroccan Air flight and stayed overnight at the Hilton Garden Inn in Jamaica, Queens.
“He is asymptomatic, and he’s being allowed to leave the hotel and fly home,” a source told The Post.
Sources said Bucks, who works with International Medical Corps, was told to self-quarantine at the hotel. But he told The Post he merely missed a connecting flight and would have left Thursday. Bucks also said he is strictly following the CDC’s recommendations and self-monitoring.
Bucks said he didn’t know Spencer, but “it sounds like this is someone who’s cut from the same cloth as me who followed all the rules and has not put other people at risk.”
The quarantined nurse who arrived at Newark was immediately stopped by authorities under the new directives. She had treated Ebola patients in Sierra Leona.
Christie said the CDC was notified of her arrival but that it was New Jersey health officials who decided to quarantine the woman, who was not a Jersey resident but had planned on traveling to New York.
Those considered at risk include medical personnel from West African nations where the deadly virus is rampant as well as those who had contact with Ebola patients.
She had no symptoms initially but developed a fever later in the day. She was under observation at University Hospital in Newark.
A friend of the woman, Dr. Seema Yasmin of Texas, ranted on Twitter about the new rule and how her pal was being treated, saying the quarantined woman was given no information.
Both governors slammed the CDC’s voluntary-screening policy as ineffective and said they acted because the agency’s shifting guidelines don’t go far enough to protect the public from the contagion.
“Voluntary quarantine, it’s almost an oxymoron. In a region like this, you go out and ride the subway, you could affect hundreds and hundreds of people. We believe it is in the state of New York’s and the state of New Jersey’s legal rights to control access to their borders,” Cuomo said.
Christie also took a slap at the feds — bluntly declaring that state officials know better.
“New Jersey and New York are going to determine the standards of quarantine, since the CDC’s guidance is continually changing. We need to set a standard for our two states,” he stated.
“These actions that we are taking are necessary to protect the health of the people of New Jersey and New York. Governor Cuomo and I agreed quarantine was the right way to go. We have the legal authority to do it. We are doing it.”
Despite the beefed-up measures, Cuomo said the public should not panic.
“There is no reason for undue concern or undue anxiety. We are very well prepared, very well trained and things could not have been going better from a functional point of view,” he said.
Additional reporting by Lorena Mongelli, Philip Messing and Aaron Short