Health specialist: Christie Ebola quarantine ‘inappropriate’

An Emory University health specialist slammed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s 21-day quarantine policy of health workers returning from West Africa who were exposed to Ebola.

“To infringe on their civil liberties for the sake of fighting a shadow or the bogeyman is absolutely inappropriate,” Sean Kaufman told radio host John Catsimatidis in an interview to air Sunday on “The Cats Roundtable” – AM 970 in New York.

{mosads}Christie has faced backlash from a nurse in Maine who was quarantined outside a New Jersey airport after recently treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone.

Kaci Hickox, the first person quarantined under New Jersey’s strict anti-Ebola protocols, called her treatment “inhumane” and has since won court reprieve from the order.

“Any individual who is not showing signs or symptoms — they are not contagious and they are not a risk,” said Kaufman, a bio-security expert who oversaw infection control at Emory University Hospital when it treated the first two U.S. Ebola victims.

Kaufman said he was a “huge fan of Christie’s leadership, but questioned his actions that stoke new fears about Ebola’s possible spread in the United States.

“I wonder what Governor Christie would have said if nobody showed up to New Jersey after Hurricane [Sandy] because if you returned to New Jersey you’d be in quarantine for three weeks … It’s not a leadership decision. It’s a management of fear, and I disagree with him 100%.”