 The governors of New York and New Jersey on Friday ordered quarantines for all people entering the country through two area airports if they had direct contact with Ebola patients in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The announcement signaled an immediate shift in mood, since public officials had gone to great lengths to ease public anxiety after a New York City doctor received a diagnosis of Ebola on Thursday. A few hours later, New Jersey health officials said a nurse who had recently worked with Ebola patients in Africa and landed in Newark on Friday had developed a fever and was being placed in isolation at a hospital. The nurse, who was not identified, had been quarantined earlier in the day under the new policy, even before she had symptoms. Officials did not know Friday night whether or not she had the virus. The new measures go beyond what federal guidelines require and what infectious disease experts recommend. They were also taken without consulting the city’s health department, according to a senior city official. But both governors, Andrew M. Cuomo of New York and Chris Christie of New Jersey, portrayed them as a necessary step. “A voluntary Ebola quarantine is not enough,” Mr. Cuomo said. “This is too serious a public health situation.” In New York City, disease investigators continued their search for anyone who had come into contact with the city’s first Ebola patient, Dr. Craig Spencer, since Tuesday morning. Three people who... |
