New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie wants the record to be clear: He did not reverse his decision to keep a nurse who recently treated Ebola patients in West Africa in quarantine amid public pressure, though she had been allowed to go home on Monday after significant public backlash.
“I didn’t reverse any decision,” Christie told reporters Monday, in an video that his office uploaded to YouTube. “Why are you saying I reversed a decision?”
As Christie explained:
She hadn’t had any symptoms for 24 hours and she tested negative for Ebola so there’s no reason to keep her. The reason she was put in the hospital in the first place was because she was running a high fever and was symptomatic. So if you live in New Jersey, we’ll quarantine you in your home, that’s always been the policy. If you live outside the state and you’re symptomatic, we’re not letting you go onto public transportation. It makes no common sense. The minute she was no longer symptomatic, she was released.
According to her own account, the only “symptom” that nurse Kaci Hickox ever showed was a fever that she said she and another doctor agreed was a result of her frustration. Of Christie saying that she was “obviously ill,” Hickox told CNN: “For him — a politician who’s trusted and respected — to make a statement that’s categorically not true is just unacceptable and appalling.”
Christie pointed to federal authorities for testing Hickox for Ebola in the first place.
“She was obviously ill enough that the CDC and medical officials hospitalized her and gave her an Ebola test,” he said. “They don’t do that just for fun. That’s a very specific, difficult, expensive test to do.”
He also predicted that his state’s quarantine policy would soon become the federal approach as well.
“I’m telling you guys, this is going to become a national policy eventually,” Christie said. “Eventually the CDC will come around. And remember they were late to the game in Texas and we had people infected because of it.”
