Jackson Free Press

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Despite President Barack Obama's appointment of an "Ebola czar" to oversee and coordinate the U.S. response to the deadly virus, some politicians and even an Army general were going against White House guidance on Monday, planning the kinds of quarantines that scientists say only make containing the outbreak more difficult.

Obama told Ron Klain and the rest of his Ebola team Sunday that any measures involving health care workers should be crafted to avoid unnecessarily discouraging people from responding to the outbreak. U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power added from West Africa that returning workers should be "treated like conquering heroes and not stigmatized for the tremendous work that they have done."

Instead, a nurse who volunteered with Doctors Without Borders was forced to spend her weekend in a tent in New Jersey upon her return from Africa, despite showing no symptoms other than an elevated temperature she blamed on "inhumane" treatment at Newark International Airport.

And in Italy, a U.S. Army commander said Monday that he and all his troops returning from Liberia will remain in isolation for 21 days.

Troops follow orders, not so volunteers. Doctors Without Borders said even the possibility of these forced quarantines is already harming the containment effort, since some medical workers are having to reduce their time in the field to include quarantines afterward.

"The best way to protect us is to stop the epidemic in Africa, and we need those health care workers, so we do not want to put them in a position where it makes it very, very uncomfortable for them to even volunteer to go," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Maj. Gen. Darryl Williams told The Associated Press that the decision to isolate returning troops was taken to ensure their family members' comfort, even though he none are showing symptoms, and he does not believe any soldier under his command is at risk.

Speaking by telephone from a U.S. base in Vicenza, Italy, Williams said he and his soldiers will be living in isolation under controlled monitoring during the three weeks it takes to be sure Ebola hasn't infected them. Williams returned to Italy Sunday with 10 soldiers with another 65 due back in two groups by Saturday.

It's just "normal concern," Williams said. "There was nothing elevated that triggered this increased posture."

So far, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has not ordered similar action by the other military services with troops in Africa. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the Pentagon's policy on isolating returning personnel has not been settled and implemented yet.

Also absent is any uniform response within the United States to the increasing number of people and medical volunteers returning from countries in Africa where Ebola has killed nearly half of the more than 10,000 people the virus has infected.

"The response to Ebola must not be guided primarily by panic in countries not overly affected by the epidemic," said Sophie Delaunay, the U.S. director of Doctors Without Borders.

A patchwork of contradictory state policies emerged Monday after New York's and New Jersey's governors announced that any health care workers returning from West Africa to their states would face mandatory 21-day quarantines. Illinois and Maryland announced slightly more focused measures, limited to health care workers who have come into direct contact with the bodily fluids of Ebola patients.

Some other governors, like Rhode Island Democrat Lincoln Chafee, urged his colleagues to "ratchet down some of the hysteria," since scientists have repeatedly said that people carrying the virus are not contagious until they show symptoms.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention planned to release more guidelines on Monday for how returning doctors and nurses should be monitored in ways that avoid creating disincentives for volunteering, Earnest said.

Meanwhile, Kaci Hickox was on the road, driving in a private car from New Jersey to her home in Maine.

The nurse was freed Monday from the quarantine tent where Gov. Chris Christie said had been kept since Friday "because she was running a high fever and was symptomatic."

Hickox denied that — she said she never had symptoms and tested negative for Ebola.

Her criticism of the quarantines was backed by the White House, American Civil Liberties Union, the United Nations secretary-general, the American Medical Association's president and the New England Journal of Medicine, which said governors imposing mandatory quarantines on health workers "have it wrong."

"She didn't travel over there because she was getting a big paycheck. Presumably she's not going to be inducted into the nurse's hall of fame for it. She did it out of concern for her common man," Earnest said. "Her service and commitment to this cause is something that should be honored and respected. And I don't think we do that by making her live in a tent for two or three days."

But Cuomo, a Democrat, backed his Republican neighbor Christie in calling the quarantines "entirely reasonable."

"You could say I am being overcautious," Cuomo said. "I would rather be, in this situation, a little overcautious. And I think all New Yorkers feel the same."