Officials: Travelers from West Africa to be screened for Ebola after arriving in NYC

After diagnosis of Dr. Craig Spencer, Williamsburg bowling alley allowed to reopen

October 24, 2014 By Mary Frost Brooklyn Daily Eagle

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New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and health officials said at a press conference in Brooklyn on Friday the CDC had updated screening protocols for travelers to New York City from Ebola-stricken countries in West Africa, following the diagnosis of Dr. Craig Spencer at Bellevue Hospital this past Thursday.

“Our health department will directly monitor them,” de Blasio said.

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Update: Governor Andrew Cuomo and Governor Chris Christie announced late on Friday “a mandatory quarantine for any individual who had direct contact with an individual infected with the Ebola virus while in one of the three West African nations (Liberia, Sierra Leone, or Guinea), including any medical personnel having performed medical services to individuals infected with the Ebola virus.”

This move goes further than the protocols announced by the mayor and health officials at the Friday afternoon press conference.

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Dr. Mary Travis Bassett, commissioner of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOH), told reporters that the agency would be calling arrivals from these countries on a daily basis for 21 days to check on their temperatures. “We used to recommend they voluntarily monitor themselves. Now we are going to call them. We will reach out to the person daily,” she said.

Dr. Rima Khabbaz, deputy director of infectious diseases at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), said the new protocol would include “entry screening” at five international airports. The screening would include a questionnaire and temperature check, and the distribution of information about the need to be monitored.

A blood test would be useless if an infected person is not yet showing symptoms, said Dr. Ram Raju, CEO of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC).

“If there are no symptoms, the viral load is not enough to test positive.”

Officials said that doctors working in West Africa who wear Personal Protection Gear and follow the appropriate protocol would be protected from catching Ebola. But when questioned closely by reporters, Dr. Basset admitted that DOH did not yet know how Dr. Spencer became infected.

“We don’t know how he became infected, and we may never know,” she said.

But officials reassured New Yorkers that the city was prepared. The city’s “seamless” transportation of Dr. Spencer from his Harlem home to Bellevue Hospital on Thursday followed protocols that hospitals have been practicing for more than two months, officials said.

New York City “has the best public health system in the world, and we are fully prepared to handle Ebola,” the Mayor said.

Williamsburg bowling alley “assessed” and allowed to reopen

Dr. Spencer had been taking his temperature twice daily since returning on Oct. 17 from working with Doctors Without Borders in Guinea, a West African nation affected by Ebola.

According to a timeline provided by health officials, he had visited two restaurants in Manhattan – the Highline’s Blue Bottle coffee shop and the Meatball Shop restaurant on Greenwich Ave. on Tuesday.

On Wednesday he took the L and A trains to go bowling at The Gutter, a bowling alley in Williamsburg. He returned home in an Uber car. The MTA said in a statement that there was no sign that Spencer was contagious when he rode the subway.

Dr. Mary Travis Bassett, commissioner of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, said the Uber car and its driver had been checked and cleared, and the bowling alley and the Blue Bottle had been assessed and would be allowed to reopen.

Update: The Gutter said late Friday that it would hold off on reopening until it had been cleaned and sanitized.

The Meatball Shop was being assessed on Friday by the Department of Health. Dr. Bassett said she expected it to be cleared by 6 p.m. Friday.

The assessment includes a survey and interviews, she said. DOH had determined no disinfection was necessary, de Blasio spokesperson Phil Walzak said following the press conference.

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and Assemblymember Joseph Lentol visited The Gutter on Friday to emphasize that Brooklyn — and the bowling alley — was safe and ready for business.

“I look forward to joining my colleagues at The Gutter tomorrow night to prove that the location is safe,” Lentol said.

De Blasio and health officials said the city’s “disease detectives” worked to retrace Spencer’s steps, double-checking his recalled contacts and checking his MetroCard for subway route information.

Spencer’s fiancée is under quarantine, officials said, as are two friends. “They’re required to be isolated for 21 days from last contact with an infected person,” said Dr. Bassett. “Staff visit daily and take their temperatures. They do not leave their site.”

Dr. Bassett said that Spencer’s temperature Thursday morning was 100.3 degrees, not 103 as previously reported.

Only contagious when showing symptoms

Ebola victims are only contagious to others when they begin experiencing symptoms such as fever and vomiting. Only direct contact with bodily fluids from a contagious person can spread the disease, officials said.

“Casual contact cannot lead to acquiring this disease,” de Blasio said, stressing it was extremely unlikely that Spencer infected others on his travels throughout the city, since he had no temperature and did not feel ill until Thursday morning.

De Blasio praised the work of doctors like Spencer and healthcare workers on the front lines in Africa. “The people going there to serve will be the ones to end the crises,” he said.

Officials asked patients to get their flu shots, as symptoms of the flu can mimic symptoms of Ebola and set off unnecessary panics.

And the Mayor reminded New Yorkers that they should not hesitate to call 9-1-1 or seek care at a hospital emergency room — not a doctor’s office — if they experienced symptoms.

“No one will be asked to document their status,” he said. “And people will be treated regardless of their ability to pay the bill.”