New York City’s first case of Ebola, confirmed late Thursday, has government officials scrambling and health officials mobilizing.
Governor Andrew Cuomo is on the front lines of New York’s response to a positive test for Ebola in Dr. Craig Spencer, nowunder quarantine at Bellevue in Manhattan. The doctor fell ill after returning from Guinea. Here's Cuomo on NBC’s Today Show Friday morning: "We have been preparing literally for weeks on a co-ordinated effort plan between New York City, New York State, federal government CDC, we just done a training with 5,000 healthcare workers, the health care union has been fantastic."
Then, on CNN, Cuomo said New Yorkers needn’t fear taking the subway. "I understand the fear that comes from that word now, Ebola, and it is scary, there's no doubt about that. But a little dose of reality also, right? This is not transmitted like the flu is transmitted or a common cold or a common virus. It's not about sneezing, et cetera. This is basically body fluid transfer when the person is symptomatic. The more ill the person is, the more contagious the person is. The doctor presented himself when he had a 100.3 fever, not a 103 fever as has been reported. So as soon as he saw he had a fever, he presented himself to the hospital, and at that point, everything that should have happened, happened exactly right."
Thursday night, Mayor Bill de Blasio said "clear and strong" protocols were followed in the handling and treatment of Spencer, a member of Doctors Without Borders. Spencer was recently working in West Africa. He reported that he developed a fever and diarrhea on Thursday.
A specially prepared ambulance took him to Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital, designated an Ebola treatment center. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dispatched an Ebola response team to New York.
But politics have crept into the picture, too.
Cuomo's hands-on approach is met with an incredulous response from his Republican gubernatorial rival, Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino. "On October 7th I stood outside the United Nations and called for a travel ban, immediate travel ban into America, and specifically into JFK and Newark, and the governor mocked me. Then last week when the CDC warned that Ebola was coming via airplane to New York, I again reiterated my call and asked the governor to order his health commissioner, in the name of public health, to ban anyone from coming in through a gate at Kennedy. To close the gate to anyone hwo had traveled to a western African nation. And this governor throws up his arms and says 'there's nothing we can do,' let's just deal with it when it comes in the proper way, and we'll play defense. Meanwhile we have a thousand people a week coming through the gates at JFK from western African nations, and they don't have the symptoms when they come in. so we need an immediate quarantine, we need to make sure that people do not come through our gates from a western African nation."
Nevertheless, the state's health care community says it is ready to meet Ebola, face to face. Janine Logan is with the Suburban Hospital Alliance of New York State, representing hospitals throughout the Hudson Valley and on Long Island. "The hospitals in the Hudson Valley region are prepared to handle infectious agents like Ebola. They train through table top exercises and simulations on a very scheduled basis, and are certainly able to handle an outbreak of the magnitude of Ebola, if it should come to that."
Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro: "We've reaffirmed our protocols with health care providers and emergency responders with focuses on early identification, quick isolation and then coordination with the CDC. We're also keenly aware of making sure that emergency responders and our 911 dispatchers are equally prepared."
Albany Medical Center Spokesman Jeffrey Gordon: "We've put in place the precautions as developed by the CDC to handle suspected Ebola cases. We're complying with the order issued last week to all hospitals by the New York State Commissioner of Health."
U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer says he is monitoring the situation, as are health officials in Albany County, where officials responded to a request for comment via email:
"ACDOH is actively involved in preparedness activities to assure county residents are protected from potential exposure to the Ebola virus. For many years the department’s Public Health Emergency Preparedness program has been engaged in preparedness planning to enable ACDOH to respond to a range of serious biologic threats, such as the intentional release of anthrax or smallpox, and to naturally emerging diseases such as West Nile Virus, pandemic influenza and SARS. We have an excellent staff in epidemiology and communicable disease control that is highly trained in outbreak investigation to limit the spread of tuberculosis, meningococcal meningitis and other serious but more commonly seen communicable diseases. That planning and experience serves us well to respond to the current threat posed by Ebola. A major part of our core service as a local health department is being on call 24/7 to respond to any communicable disease that requires public health intervention. This certainly applies to Ebola. ACDOH is a key resource for hospitals and healthcare providers 24/7 whenever they are evaluating an individual who might have Ebola, which is referred to as a person under investigation or 'PUI.'"
State health officials continue to tell the public Ebola is spread by directly touching the bodily fluids of an infected person, not through air or water – or by being near an infected person.
Schumer released the following statement Thursday evening in light of the confirmed case of Ebola in New York City: “I’ve spoken this evening to both the Ebola Response Coordinator Ron Klain and HHS Secretary Burwell; they have assured me that all federal resources will be available to New York in any way. I will be monitoring the situation very closely.”
Learn more about the CDC’s enhanced guidelines for healthcare workers at theirwebsite. Go to the NYS website for more details about the NYSDOH orderand the Ebola virus.
