CNN’s Brian Stelter wagged his finger at Fox News on Sunday for what he described as premature condemnation of Ebola’s first patient in New York City.
Rolling a clip from Thursday’s edition of “The Kelly File,” Stelter presented host Megyn Kelly ripping into Dr. Craig Spencer for not “self-quarantining” after he discovered he had a “103 fever.”
“There was a lot of this—not just on Fox, there was a lot online too—people calling Dr. Spencer ‘irresponsible,'” Stelter began. “But this is one of those excellent examples about why we should all avoid rushing to judgment.”
“Spencer did not have a 103 fever, he had a 100.3 fever, ” he said. “The decimal point is all that matters, here.”
On Thursday, before initial reports about Spencer’s fever had been revised, Kelly spoke with Fox News contributor Dr. Marc Siegel and launched into a breathless condemnation of the Ebola-striken doctor.
“He comes back into New York City. He knows he’s been handling Ebola patients, and he’s here for a week?” she said. “He doesn’t tell anybody and if he starts to feel symptomatic before his 103 fever, he’s still out there bowling and taking taxis and not quarantining, not just self-quarantining?”
Siegel agreed.
“It doesn’t sound, from what we’re hearing, like he took personal responsibility at all,” he said.
But several experts and medical professionals had disagreed with Kelly’s assessment. Stelter, too, suggested that her personal condemnation of the doctor didn’t hold up.
“100.3 is a low-grade fever, not a high-grade fever,” he explained. “And this is what I mean when I say what a difference a number makes.”
Watch the clip below, via Media Matters:
h/t Media Matters
This post has been updated.
