On Monday, a nurse was released from quarantine in New Jersey and began making her way back to Maine. Kaci Hickox, the nurse who had been held in quarantine in a tent at a Newark hospital since Friday, was released in the early afternoon.
In the evening, a family from the Bronx – and possibly the entire city of New York – breathed a sigh of relief as a 5-year-old boy was cleared of Ebola by a blood test. The test came back negative, but city officials said the boy is being kept in the hospital, just to be safe.
The boy had been placed in isolation after he grew ill following a trip to Guinea.
That’s all for the day’s updates. We will be back with more should there be new developments.
6:56 P.M. A Cheer Goes Up in the Bronx
The Bronx borough president, Rubén Díaz Jr., expressed joy at the news that a 5-year-old resident had tested negative for Ebola:
6:00 P.M. Boy Tests Negative for Ebola
A blood test for the 5-year-old boy taken to Bellevue Hospital Center came back negative for Ebola, city health officials said. As a precaution, he will be kept isolated at Bellevue pending further Ebola tests.
In a statement, the city health department and the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation said, “The result of the test is negative. Out of an abundance of caution, further negative Ebola tests are required on subsequent days to ensure that the patient is cleared. The patient will also be tested for common respiratory viruses. The patient will remain in isolation until all test results have returned.”
The child had recently returned from Guinea with his family. He was transported to Bellevue Hospital Center on Sunday night by emergency medical workers wearing protective gear and placed in isolation with his mother.
5:05 P.M. Journal: Mandatory Quarantine “Unfair and Unwise”
An editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine criticized the mandatory quarantine imposed in New York and New Jersey, saying it “is not scientifically based, is unfair and unwise, and will impede essential efforts to stop these awful outbreaks of Ebola disease at their source, which is the only satisfactory goal.”
4:50 P.M. U.S. Government Issues New Guidelines
The federal government on Monday urged what it called “active monitoring” of health care workers or family members who have been in direct contact with Ebola patients in West Africa, the director of the Centers for Disease Control said.
Drawing a sharp contrast with the policies in New York and New Jersey, which call for mandatory quarantine of anyone who had contact with Ebola patients in West Africa, the federal government will not automatically quarantine such people, but will rather rely on local health authorities to make contact with them every day to check on their health status or symptoms.
Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the director of the C.D.C., said the new guidelines recommended restricting a person’s movement only if there is a specific indication that that person is at high risk of contracting Ebola — if, for example, he or she has been stuck by a needle used on an Ebola patient.
“We believe they are based on science,” Dr. Frieden said of the guidelines. “These add a strong level of protection and a strong level of reassurance.”
— MICHAEL SHEAR
4:24 P.M. A Joke the Governor Did Not Make
Correction: An earlier update about Governor Cuomo joking that quarantined health workers would have time to read his memoir mischaracterized one of the governor’s comments.
While he did (jokingly) recommend that quarantined people read his book, he did not say that the state could legally force anyone to read it.
Rather, he said — seriously — that the state could legally force health workers to obey a quarantine.
3:28 p.m. Anxiety and Rumors on a Bronx Block
Outside the building in the Bronx that is home to the 5-year-old boy who is being tested for Ebola, police officers and health officials stood watch, reassuring residents who stopped to ask why so many reporters and camera people were gathered.
Outreach workers in blue jackets handed out fliers in English and Spanish to residents, who were dismayed to hear that the faraway disease might have come to their block of East 172nd Street in the Soundview neighborhood.
Though the fliers explained how difficult it is to contract Ebola, the news that the boy was being examined at Bellevue Hospital Center was enough to spread apprehension and rumors.
A few parents showed up at the elementary school building on the corner ahead of dismissal time to drag their children out early. People on the block said they had heard that the ailing boy attended school there.
“You will not be going back to school for a very long time,” one woman told the little boy she was hurrying along beside her.
The super of another building on the boy’s block, Manny Martinez, said that super of the boy’s building had told him that after the boy was taken to the hospital, he had asked the building’s management what to do.
The super said he was told to clean as usual, so he did — wearing no special protective gear but his regular gloves, Mr. Martinez said.
Mr. Martinez said that two ambulances and several Fire Department vehicles arrived at the building around 9:30 p.m. Sunday. An hour later, he said, two people in hazmat suits had emerged with the boy, who was almost entirely covered with only his eyes exposed.
“He looked like a mummy,” Mr. Martinez said. “They’re regular people. I feel sorry for that little kid. I hope he gets better.”
— VIVIAN YEE
2:46 P.M. Cuomo: Under Quarantine? Read My Memoir
Governor Cuomo bravely ventured a joke at a news conference on Monday about Ebola quarantines.
He said that for health care workers returning from treating Ebola patients in West Africa, a home quarantine is not overly onerous.
“Twenty-one days, in your home, with your friends and your family, and you’ll be compensated,” he said. “Read a book, read my book.”
He meant his new 528-page memoir, “All Things Possible: Setbacks and Success in Politics and in Life,” which sold a total of 945 copies in its first week.
“You don’t have to read my book,” he quickly added, “but stay home for 21 days.”
— NATE SCHWEBER
2:35 P.M. Boy Was Sick and Feverish Last Night, Family Said
Relatives of the ailing 5-year-old boy from the Bronx first called 911 at 9:02 p.m. on Sunday and told the operator the boy was sick and had a fever, a law enforcement official said.
The boy had recently returned to New York from Guinea.
It took nearly three hours for the boy to reach Bellevue Hospital Center, the official said — reflecting the time it took for the responders to get suited up and bring one of the dedicated ambulances responding to potential Ebola cases.
City officials said this morning that when the boy arrived at Bellevue he did not have a fever but developed one around 7 a.m. today.
— JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN
2:31 P.M. At 5-Year-Old’s Bronx Building, Palm Cards and Caution
The 5-year-old boy being tested for Ebola today lives on East 172nd Street in Soundview in the Bronx.
2:24 P.M. Nurse Left in Mini-Caravan of S.U.V.s
Ms. Hickox left University Hospital in a very small motorcade consisting of two black S.U.V.s, both headed for Maine, where Ms. Hickox lives, said Stacie Newton, a hospital spokeswoman.
Ms. Newton would not say whether the vehicles belonged to the State of New Jersey or who else was inside them.
— JASON GRANT
1:57 P.M. Nurse Has Left Newark Hospital
1:37 Nurse Subject to Quarantine in Maine
Kaci Hickox, the nurse who has been kept in isolation at a New Jersey hospital, will be subject to quarantine at home when she arrives in Maine, officials in Maine said on Monday. Ms. Hickox, who has been held in a tent despite having no symptoms, is expected to be transferred to Maine sometime today. Under guidelines established by Maine’s Department of Health, Ms. Hickox would be asked to remain at home until it was determined that she was no longer at risk for developing Ebola, which is usually 21 days from the time of exposure to the virus. Ms. Hickox returned on Friday to New Jersey after serving for a month in Sierra Leone with Doctors Without Borders, treating Ebola patients.
1:37 P.M. U.S. Troops Quarantined in Italy After Leaving Liberia
The United States Army has isolated about a dozen soldiers returning from Liberia at a base in Italy, including the top general who oversaw the military’s initial response to the Ebola outbreak, even though none of them showed symptoms of infection, the Pentagon said on Monday.
The Pentagon said that Brig. Gen. Darryl Williams and 10 of his traveling party were being quarantined out of “an abundance of caution.”
Defense officials said the Pentagon protocol for American troops traveling to Liberia remains the same — those with low levels of risk will not be quarantined. But a military official said Monday that that protocol could change.
— HELENE COOPER
1:26 P.M. White House Spokesman: ‘These Individuals Are Heroes’
Josh Earnest, the spokesman, said that it was disrespectful to Kaci Hickox, the nurse being held in Newark after treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone, to “confine her in a tent for two or three days.”
He said that health care workers who work with Ebola patients abroad “are putting themselves at risk to try to meet the needs of other people,” an act of great charity, he said, that is also in the best interests of the American people.
“These individuals are heroes,” Mr. Earnest said, “and their commitment to their common man and to their country is one that should be respected.”
He added, “We believe that we can both show them respect that they have earned while also showing that we have protocols in place to protect the American people.”
He urged that any quarantine rules imposed by states be based in science.
1:17 P.M. Live Video: White House Briefing on Ebola
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will release new guidelines for medical workers who treat Ebola patients, the White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, said this afternoon.
The guidelines are not mandatory and states are allowed to make their own guidelines, as New York and New Jersey have.
1:08 P.M. Scrubbing Out Possible Traces of Disease
Read how a hazardous-materials crew cleaned the Harlem apartment of Dr. Craig Spencer, the Ebola patient at Bellevue Hospital Center, and the inside of the bowling alley he visited — right down to the finger holes of the balls.
12:34 P.M. Live Stream: Columbia Conference on Ebola
The National Center for Disaster Preparedness and the Earth Institute at Columbia University are holding a conference today on the topic “The Ebola Crisis: What It Means for West Africa and the World.”
The conference describes itself as a “multi-disciplinary dialogue which will focus on how best to curb the epidemic, understand its impacts — particularly in terms of bioethical and sustainability implications — and mitigate future high-fatality events.”
Panelists include Dr. Jay Varma, the city’s deputy health commissioner for disease control, and Robert Klitzman, a medical ethicist at Columbia. See full program.
The conference runs from 1 to 5 p.m. Eastern Time.
11:53 A.M. No Evidence of Disease Spreading, Mayor Says
Mayor de Blasio stressed that although one patient is hospitalized with Ebola and another is being tested for it, “there’s no evidence of a pattern of spreading here that would cause us to have greater concern.”
11:51 A.M. 5-Year-Old’s Mother Is With Him at Bellevue
As blood-test results are awaited on a 5-year-old boy recently back from Guinea who was taken to Bellevue Hospital Center with Ebola-like symptoms, Mayor de Blasio said that the boy’s mother has shown no symptoms of the disease.
The boy’s mother is with him at the hospital, the mayor said, because, “by definition, we want her with the child, because we want the child to have the support of his mother.”
11:43 A.M. Fiancée and Friends of Doctor With Ebola Are Not Sick
Mayor de Blasio said that the fiancée and friends of Craig Spencer, the doctor hospitalized for Ebola, are symptom-free. They remain under quarantine.
Dr. Spencer, the mayor said, remains in serious but stable condition this morning.
11:37 A.M. Mayor Speaks on Ebola at News Conference
Mayor Bill de Blasio fielded questions about Ebola after a news conference on a new law lowering the city’s speed limit.
He declined to give details on what symptoms the 5-year-old boy showed that led him to be brought to Bellevue Hospital Center, citing privacy rules.
He said that the boy “very, very recently returned from West Africa” and that blood-test results would be made public “probably late in the afternoon.”