Dr. Nancy Snyderman’s status at NBC News remains in limbo, but she could resume her duties as the network’s chief medical editor soon.
Snyderman has been sidelined ever since she violated a voluntary quarantine in October following her return to the United States from Liberia, where she and a crew had been covering the Ebola outbreak.
NBC said previously that she would return at some point in November, but the month came and went without a word from Snyderman on television or social media.
CNN’s Brian Stelter cited NBC employees who said that only “top executives of the news division” know what will happen to Snyderman, but they do expect her to return to the air soon.
Snyderman found herself in hot water after she violated her self-imposed 21-day quarantine with a trip to a New Jersey restaurant. The lapse contradicted advice that Snyderman had dispensed and prompted New Jersey health officials to institute a mandatory quarantine.
But Snyderman also had defenders. Ashoka Mukpo, a freelance photojournalist who contracted Ebola while covering the outbreak in West Africa for NBC News, gave a “shout out” to Snyderman on Twitter in October.
Mukpo, who worked alongside Snyderman for a short time in Liberia, was successfully treated for the virus at the Nebraska Medical Center.
“For the record me and her were never within 3 feet of each other once,” Mukpo said in the tweet. “Be nice to her plz.”
At the conclusion of the 21-day quarantine in October, NBC News president Deborah Turness said that Snyderman and her crew would be taking more time off, possibly to allow the controversy to subside.
“We very much look forward to their return next month,” Turness said in an internal memo at the time.
