UTA grad isolated at New Jersey hospital as part of Ebola quarantine
By KACI HICKOX
Special Contributor
Published: 25 October 2014 12:00 PM
Updated: 25 October 2014 08:56 PM
(Editor’s note: Kaci Hickox, a nurse with degrees from the University of Texas at Arlington and the Johns Hopkins University, has been caring for Ebola patients while on assignment with Doctors Without Borders in Sierra Leone. Upon her return to the U.S. on Friday, she was placed in quarantine at a New Jersey hospital. She has tested negative in a preliminary test for Ebola, but the hospital says she will remain under mandatory quarantine for 21 days and will be monitored by public health officials. Dr. Seema Yasmin, a Dallas Morning News staff writer, worked with Hickox as a disease detective with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. With Yasmin’s help, Hickox wrote this first-person piece exclusively for the News.)
I am a nurse who has just returned to the U.S. after working with Doctors Without Borders in Sierra Leone – an Ebola-affected country. I have been quarantined in New Jersey. This is not a situation I would wish on anyone, and I am scared for those who will follow me.
I am scared about how health care workers will be treated at airports when they declare that they have been fighting Ebola in West Africa. I am scared that, like me, they will arrive and see a frenzy of disorganization, fear and, most frightening, quarantine.
I arrived at the Newark Liberty International Airport around 1 p.m. on Friday, after a grueling two-day journey from Sierra Leone. I walked up to the immigration official at the airport and was greeted with a big smile and a “hello.”
I told him that I have traveled from Sierra Leone and he replied, a little less enthusiastically: “No problem. They are probably going to ask you a few questions.”
He put on gloves and a mask and called someone. Then he escorted me to the quarantine office a few yards away. I was told to sit down. Everyone that came out of the offices was hurrying from room to room in white protective coveralls, gloves, masks, and a disposable face shield.
One after another, people asked me questions. Some introduced themselves, some didn’t. One man who must have been an immigration officer because he was wearing a weapon belt that I could see protruding from his white coveralls barked questions at me as if I was a criminal.
Two other officials asked about my work in Sierra Leone. One of them was from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They scribbled notes in the margins of their form, a form that appeared to be inadequate for the many details they are collecting.
https://www.dallasnews.com/ebola/headlines/20141025-uta-grad-isolated-at-new-jersey-hospital-as-part-of-ebola-quarantine.ece
Tag: Ebola Quarantine
NBC’s Snyderman faces credibility issues over Ebola quarantine
wanted posters for Snyderman
NBC’s Snyderman faces credibility issues over Ebola quarantine
October 20, 2014, 1:40 PM Last updated: Monday, October 20, 2014, 2:02 PM
Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — The quarantine against possible Ebola exposure ends this week for Dr. Nancy Snyderman, but the troubles clearly aren’t over for NBC News’ chief medical editor.
An admitted lapse in the quarantine, combined with a curiously imprecise explanation, unleashed a furious response. NBC must now decide whether Snyderman’s credibility is too damaged for her to continue reporting on Ebola or other medical issues and, if so, for how long. The network would not comment.
Snyderman, a surgeon who spent 17 years as a medical correspondent for ABC News and has been at NBC since 2006, covered the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and worked briefly with Ashoka Mukpo, the cameraman who caught the virus and is now being treated in Nebraska. Upon returning to the United States, Snyderman and her crew voluntarily agreed to quarantine themselves for 21 days, the longest known incubation period for the disease. They have shown no symptoms.
Yet New Jersey health officials ruled that her quarantine should be mandatory after Snyderman and her crew were spotted getting takeout food from a New Jersey restaurant.
NBC won’t give details about who actually went into the restaurant, or even how many of its employees are being quarantined. Snyderman issued a statement saying “members of our group” violated their pledge.
More than 1,100 people have subsequently written on Snyderman’s Facebook page, many expressing anger. There were suggestions she should be fired or lose her medical license, and some viewers said they wouldn’t trust her again. Snyderman’s failure to be more specific about the lapse or take greater responsibility was another flashpoint.
Snyderman’s “arrogance and dismissiveness” create a huge PR and credibility problem for NBC, said Kelly McBride, an expert on ethics for the journalism think tank the Poynter Institute.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/nbc-s-snyderman-faces-credibility-issues-over-ebola-quarantine-1.1113305#sthash.fVTQN3mP.dpuf
NBC’s Dr. Nancy Snyderman Violated Ebola Quarantine
NBC’s Dr. Nancy Snyderman violated her 21-day Ebola quarantine by making a secret run to a New Jersey restaurant … sources connected to the investigation now confirm to TMZ.
NBC’s Dr. Nancy Snyderman Violated Ebola Quarantine
10/13/2014 10:18 AM PDT BY TMZ STAFF
As TMZ previously reported … several people say they spotted Snyderman last week in the back seat of her Mercedes outside the Peasant Grill near Princeton University. TMZ has now confirmed … New Jersey officials have investigated and determined Snyderman was indeed in the car, and someone from the NBC crew — also under quarantine — went inside the restaurant to pick up food.
We’re told a third member of her crew — also under quarantine — stayed inside the car with Snyderman, who was wearing shades and had her hair in a ponytail.
The lapse on the part of Snyderman and her crew was enough for the New Jersey Health Dept. to turn the voluntary 21-day quarantine into a mandatory order.
But Stephanie Carey, the local health officer in Montgomery Township where the restaurant is located, tells TMZ there is absolutely NO health risk as a result of the quarantine violation. Carey says all members of the NBC crew are asymptomatic and therefore it is impossible for someone to contract Ebola even with direct contact.
Carey adds the restaurant is 100% percent safe. She says she even ate there today, and it was delicious.
As for NBC … they are locked down tight as a drum. TMZ has attempted multiple times to get a statement, but they say they will not comment because of “privacy concerns.” Since NBC has been reporting extensively on Ebola, quarantines and breaches, it’s unclear why they consider this a private matter.
Read more: https://www.tmz.com/2014/10/13/nbc-dr-nancy-snyderman-ebola-quarantine-restaurant-new-jersey/#ixzz3G4dlV4Tc