By MEGAN MESSANA & SANDRA ALMONTE
Mayor Bill de Blasio sidestepped a question regarding New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s treatment of a Maine nurse, but still managed to convey his disapproval during a press conference at Fire Department EMS Station 10 in East Harlem on Tuesday.
Responding to a reporter’s question about whether Christie should apologize to Kaci Hickox who was quarantined against her will upon her return to Newark Airport after treating Ebola patients in West Africa he said, “This is a moment that is not about personalities.”
But he then praised the nurse for her heroism and service and criticized how she was treated, saying, “She did not deserve what happened to her. It was absolutely unfair and inappropriate. She was treated disrespectfully and was not given the dignity of being informed of the circumstances of why she was being treated that way.”
On Monday Christie, after weathering strong criticism from Hickox and national health officials, allowed the nurse to return to Maine where she resides with her boyfriend and where local officials would set her treatment and might subject her to voluntary home quarantine though she exhibits no symptoms of illness.
After Dr. Craig Spencer had the first confirmed case of Ebola in New York, Christie and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a mandatory quarantine of any health care workers returning to New York or New Jersey from West Africa. Cuomo later stepped back from the stance, requiring home quarantine of returnees who show no symtoms.
Officials staged the press conference to thank the Fire Department EMS workers who transported Dr. Spencer to Bellevue Hospital from his Harlem apartment.
“They’ve been training for months for the possibility of transporting Ebola patients to hospitals” de Blasio said of the EMS workers. “It gives people a real sense of security knowing that the very best professionals were on the case.”
Dr. Spencer had recently returned from Guinea, where he contracted the virus after treating Ebola patients with Doctors Without Borders. Originally, all health care workers returning from West Africa went through screening and then were instructed to self-monitor for up to 21 days for Ebola symptoms. While Dr. Spencer followed these protocols and contacted Doctors Without Borders and EMS workers when he developed a fever, his going about day-to-day activities up until that point sent troubled some observers.
Health experts say the Ebola virus is not contagious until a patient is symptomatic, and even then can only be transmitted via bodily fluids.
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