The Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) issues new guidelines on how to deal with travelers from Western Africa, including telling states that health workers returning from virus-hit nations should not be quarantined.
In a Reuters article published on Monday, October 27, CDC director Dr. Thomas Frieden announced in a press conference that returning health workers should not be placed under quarantine but instead required to conduct daily monitoring. This change may have been caused by a recent uproar as Kaci Hickox, a returning nurse from Sierra Leone, was quarantined shortly after her arrival in Newark airport in New Jersey.
In an essay published in Dallas Morning News, she criticized the way the airport and state authorities managed her and called the quarantine process frightening. She expressed the same fear to future returning workers.
Under the new guidelines, passengers coming from West Africa will be classified according to risks. For example, a health worker may be considered as "some risk" when he or she doesn't have comprehensive contact with Ebola patients and that he or she has worn the proper PPE (personal protective equipment) religiously and correctly.
They are required to monitor their temperature twice a day. Ebola fever has a threshold of 38 degrees Celsius. If they wish to travel, they have to ask permission from CDC first, who will then evaluate it. A person under some risk, therefore, may not be allowed to travel.
Meanwhile, those who are considered high risk are individuals who have direct contact with the infection-that is, they had handled patients without PPE. Aside from active daily monitoring, they have to isolate themselves for 21 days, the typical duration of the virus incubation, in their respective homes. They are not allowed to ride public transport such as subways or attend gatherings and activities with plenty of people. However, they may be allowed to go out perhaps to jog or other activities that won't involve having body contact with anyone.