California officials announce 'flexible' Ebola quarantine policy

Jumping into the national controversy over how to treat returning health care workers from the Ebola zone in West Africa, California's leading public health official has issued guidelines calling for a flexible, case-by-case analysis of individuals who are possible candidates for quarantine.

There are no reported or confirmed cases of the deadly viral disease in California, said Dr. Ron Chapman, state health officer and director of the California Department of Public Health. The new "quarantine order and associated guidelines" are an effort to "help prevent any potential spread of the disease in the state."

The state policy requires counties to "individually assess persons at risk for Ebola and tailor an appropriate level of quarantine as needed."

It comes as several state governors, including Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, have tangled publicly with health officials over the issue of mandatory 21-day quarantines for returning doctors, nurses, other health workers and others returning from the Ebola-ravaged West African nations of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. In those counties, roughly 5,000 have died of Ebola in recent months.

Chapman called the order "a statewide, standard protocol requiring some level of quarantine for those at highest risk of contracting and spreading Ebola."

It "will protect the health and safety of Californians and support the state's local health officers' existing authority to develop protections against disease spread," he said.

The order applies to anyone traveling to California who has come from an Ebola-affected area and had contact with someone with a confirmed case of the disease, Chapman said in his Wednesday statement.

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