- Dr. Anthony S. Fauci says 21-day quarantines of health-care workers carry risks. Above, Dr. Fauci speaks during a House subcommittee hearing Oct. 16 on the U.S. public health response to Ebola.
- Andrew Harrer
The chorus of Obama administration officials pushing back against mandatory Ebola quarantines got a note louder Thursday when a top health official spoke at a policy forum in Washington.
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, said there are positive signs on Ebola in West Africa but that perhaps thousands more health workers are needed to contain it there.
Some states including New Jersey and New York have imposed mandatory quarantines of health workers returning from the region. Obama administration officials have said that will only discourage the flow of Ebola volunteers to West Africa, and in turn put the U.S. at greater risk for the disease spreading domestically.
“If you have a blanket 21-day quarantine, that would be a major disincentive,” Dr. Fauci said at the Washington Ideas Forum, sponsored by The Atlantic magazine and the Aspen Institute.
He said there should be a gradation of risks and that, for example, “if you’re at high risk, you don’t travel.”
Dr. Fauci’s remarks came just as the nurse who has resisted state-imposed quarantines after she treated Ebola patients in West Africa left the house to enjoy a bike ride in northern Maine. Kaci Hickox, 33 years old, breezed on two wheels through rural Fort Kent while being followed by a police car.
Dr. Fauci said Ebola may be waning in Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, but “Ebola can go in waves.” It can still spread in remote areas in Sierra Leone and elsewhere, he said.
He said the current epidemic in West Africa results from a “perfect storm” in countries with weak medical care, little tracing to find people in contact with patients, and “porous borders.”
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