Washington – The White House is pressuring the governors of New York and New Jersey to reverse their orders imposing a quarantine on all medical workers returning from West Africa who had contacts with Ebola patients, the New York Times reported on Sunday.
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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie made the decisions on Friday after a doctor who treated patients in Guinea came back to New York infected.
Quoting an unnamed administration official, the paper said “top administration officials have been speaking with Mr. Cuomo daily and have also been in touch with Mr. Christie, trying to get them to rescind the order.”
In the meantime, Illinois and Florida said they were also imposing similar steps.
“A senior administration official, who did not want to be identified in order to discuss private conversations with state officials on the issue, called the decision by the governors ‘uncoordinated, very hurried, an immediate reaction to the New York City case that doesn’t comport with science’,” the New York Times said.
The Obama administration says the new measures could have unintended consequences.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” program on Sunday that the new steps could deter healthcare workers from going to West Africa to help fight the epidemic and that the best way to protect Americans is to stop Ebola in Africa.
Christie, speaking earlier on “Fox News Sunday,” stood his ground. “We’ve taken this action and I have absolutely no second thoughts about it” he said.
Let them all land in Washington DC and then jump the fence. Let the Secret Service tackle them.
The insanity eminating from the White house nowadays is just limitless.
This is outrageous! Our useless, brainless president is always on the wrong side of every issue, especially when it comes to protecting Americans!!!
Oh god
What chutzpah putting us in danger!
Obola once agin putting American’s needs last.
Obama and his administration has got to be the dumbest in the history of the US, surpassing even his royal dumbness Jimmy Carter. This man’s stupidity on behalf of political correctness is beyond silly; it has become outright dangerous. Law professors have no business running countries. I will take governors over them, anyday, anytime, anyhour.
This is another part of obamacare. To further reduce available doctors in America.
So we finally get liberal Democrats and Conservative Republicans to agree: the White House Adminstration is incompetent and needs to be thrown out!! Power to the people!
Notice, How fast he shut down travel to Israel during the summer?
The economy of Israel wasn’t a concern them. But of Course West Africa…..
In the end of days Hashem will deliver justice appropriately. It’s our only consolation.
While it is true that these rules might cut down on Americans going to West Africa to fight Ebola there, maybe the Feds could email instructions and have someone in West Africa just follow the protocol.
There are no vaccines or antibiotics to help at the present time, so whatever the American doctors were doing, let the locals do.
This is a continuous effort from the executive branch trying to govern the states. If you are liberal you should be okay with this and if you are conservative you have an issue with this. It is not a matter of right or wrong. The president is having an issue with the states acting on their own while he wants a dynamic approach headed by the white house or the federal government.
I suspect that many of the posters who think this “feel good” policy will help protect them will live to regret their position. Once this epidemic leaps beyond the borders of 3 countries in West Africa to Asia and Europe, it will be too late. We need to do everything we can to help defeat this disease in Africa NOW and punishing doctors who go to over there is contrary to the advice of all the public health professionals.
Perhaps Michelle would like to take another trip to Africa?
Calm down and try to think rationally. The hysteria about ebola is bizarre. In the US so far one person has died while the two nurses who treated him have both been treated and left the hospital cured. The 17 or so relatives of the deceased person have all survived the 21 incubation period and are not infected.
It is highly unlikely that the doctor up in Harlem will not survive. He has had a transfusion of blood from another survivor and that seems to be what is necessary to effect a cure.
Even Nigeria, which is hardly a model of 1st world health care, has been declared ebola free.
You should be fearful in proportion to the danger. Last year 178 people were killed in vehicle crashes in New York or a little less than 1 every 2 days and some 30,000 plus were killed nationwide.
If you want to be afraid of ebola, at least be more afraid of car crashes which are much, much more dangerous.