New York officials work to calm fears over Ebola

NEW YORK – A doctor being treated for Ebola received experimental drugs and was in stable condition Saturday, New York City officials said as they sought to tamp down a controversy over whether new quarantines in three states – New York, New Jersey and Illinois – were the best way to prevent the virus’ spread.

Mayor Bill de Blasio and the city’s health commissioner, Dr. Mary Bassett, took their campaign for citywide calm to the heart of Greenwich Village, where this city’s first Ebola patient, Craig Spencer, ate at a restaurant before he fell ill Thursday.

Still chewing the last of his meatball lunch, de Blasio stood outside The Meatball Shop eatery and described it as a symbol of the city’s flair for dealing with unpleasant surprises, from tropical storms to blizzards to scary diseases.

“It’s a real example of how New Yorkers deal with a challenge,” de Blasio said of the crowded cafe, which abruptly closed Thursday afternoon after Spencer tested positive for Ebola. Health experts visited the restaurant and determined that there was no chance that Spencer had exposed anyone to the virus, and the restaurant reopened Friday evening.

The restaurant owner, Daniel Holzman, standing beside the mayor and wearing a white apron, said he was nervous that the restaurant’s sudden place in the midst of an Ebola story would scare people away.

“But we had a line down the block,” Holzman said, as diners snapped pictures of the sidewalk news conference going on outside the restaurant.

A couple of miles away, Spencer remained in isolation at Bellevue Hospital. His fiancee and two close friends, who had physical contact with Spencer upon his return to New York on Oct. 17 from Guinea, were quarantined, but none was showing signs of Ebola.

Bassett said they were the only people considered “close contacts” of Spencer and thus subject to quarantine. Their quarantines will be lifted next month, assuming they stay healthy.

Bassett said Spencer, 33, had received the experimental anti-viral drug brincidofovir, which does not have FDA approval but has been used on other Ebola patients who recovered.

Bassett also said that as of Saturday, city health workers had begun a stepped-up monitoring program for all travelers in the city who have arrived from the Ebola-afflicted countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

For three weeks, such travelers, whose names are available from passenger manifests, will receive daily phone calls or home visits from health care workers to ensure they are not developing Ebola symptoms, Bassett said.

The ramped-up efforts to keep track of possible Ebola carriers comes on top of Friday’s announcement by the governors of New York and New Jersey that all medical workers who have treated Ebola patients will be under mandatory, 21-day quarantines when they fly into those states.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said they imposed the quarantines because they did not have faith in U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, which advise voluntary self-monitoring.

Later, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn signed an order mandating similar quarantines for passengers arriving there from the Ebola-afflicted region.

De Blasio said Cuomo had not advised him of the quarantine measures before announcing them; the mayor has said repeatedly that he has faith in the CDC’s guidelines.

But he said the quarantines won’t rope in every traveler coming from West Africa – only those who have had direct contact with Ebola patients – and that Cuomo’s move was a reflection of New York being a “big and complicated city.”

“In an atmosphere of crisis, we respect the chain of command here,” de Blasio said, referring to the governor’s order.