LAURIE GARRETT, SENIOR FELLOW FOR GLOBAL HEALTH AT THE COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS TALKS ABOUT HER TRIP TO EBOLA RAVAGED LIBERIA AND SIERRA LEONE.. I’m Back From Liberia and Under a (Self-Imposed) Quarantine in Brooklyn Going from Monrovia to Belgium to New York meant enduring power outages, fever CHECKS, Ebola questionnaires, and the hallway from hell. Throughout my 29-hour journey HOME from the West African Ebola epidemic, one question lurked in the back of my mind: How will America greet me? Will I be quarantined? When I left the United States at the end of October, the United States was riveted with fear. Doctors Without Borders (or MSF, its French acronym) NURSE Kaci Hickox had just been released from her confinement inside a tent near Newark Liberty INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, where she’d been placed in quarantine under orders from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie despite her negative Ebola BLOOD TESTS. Hickox had intended to merely pass through the airport, coming from Liberia with her home destination in Maine. After being released from Newark, Hickox encountered hostility in Maine as WELL. Physician Craig Spencer was fighting for his life in New York’s Bellevue Hospital Center, having acquired Ebola while working for MSF in Guinea, and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was calling for mandatory confinement of people flying in from Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea. MSF warned that restrictions placed on health-care workers threatened to undermine recruitment of personnel vitally needed for the African Ebola fight. In Washington, some members of the House and Senate were demanding cessation of visa issuances for all travelers from the hard-hit African countries; health-care workers across the United States were terrified of encountering an infected patient; and the mood across America, rife with misinformation, seemed grim. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered 21-day quarantines on all U.S. military personnel returning from Ebola duty. The Obama administration’s scheme for limiting travelers arriving from hard-hit countries to five major airports staffed with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention physicians was labeled mere political theater. As I planned my journey to Liberia and Sierra Leone, I was far less concerned with contracting Ebola than I was worried about the weeks of quarantine upon return.I was far less concerned with contracting Ebola than I was worried about the weeks of quarantine upon return. I’ve been in an Ebola epidemic before and know the viral enemy well. It was the social and political threats inside the United States that worried me, as they seemed tied to the midterm-elections atmosphere, polarized and unpredictable. After traveling around Liberia and Sierra Leone to observe the response to the epidemic, I started my journey home on Nov. 14 at 4:30 p.m. (Monrovia time) with the long drive to Roberts International Airport. The trip on the paved two-lane road from Liberia’s capital city can be completed in an hour, but heavy traffic often doubles the journey’s duration. After 90 minutes my vehicle neared the airport’s security gates, and the sweltering heat had transformed into a tropical downpour. I lugged my bags through the rain and mud, worrying that my frustration with the security guards’ seemingly arbitrary decision that my driver be denied entry to the airport would make my temper flare, and temperature rise.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Dec 2014 06:48:53 +0000
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