New York and New Jersey’s mandatory Ebola quarantine is about politics

[truebluefan]

As of late Sunday night, Kaci Hickox remained in an isolation tent at a New Jersey hospital in circumstances she described as “inhumane.” Hickox, a nurse who had been working with Doctors Without Borders in Sierra Leone, has twice tested negative for the Ebola virus. Even so, she has been involuntarily isolated under a mandatory 21-day quarantine instituted for anyone who arrives in New Jersey or New York from West Africa after having contact with an Ebola patient. But that quarantine, imposed by Gov. Chris Christie and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, appears to be less about public health than the politicians’ own public images. (Update, Monday, Oct. 27, 10:15 a.m.: Gov. Chris Christie announced this morning that Kaci Hickox will be discharged from Newark's University Hospital and transported to Maine via a private carrier. “She will remain subject to New Jersey's mandatory quarantine order while in New Jersey,” according to a statement from the New Jersey Department of Health. “Health officials in Maine have been notified of her arrangements and will make a determination under their own laws on her treatment when she arrives.”)

Read more http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...y_ebola_quarantine_is_about_politics_not.html