Craig Spencer, a 33-year-old emergency physician at New York Presbyterian Hospital, was being treated in an isolation unit at Bellevue Hospital Center after being rushed to the major trauma facility Thursday when he reported a high fever and diarrhea, which are among Ebola's symptoms.
Spencer, also a volunteer for international health care group Doctors without Borders, had returned less than a week ago from Guinea, one of the three countries in West Africa hardest hit by an outbreak of Ebola. The epidemic there has killed about 4,800 people. More than 440 health workers there have contracted the disease, and about half have died.
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Four American aid workers, including three doctors, were infected with Ebola while working in Africa and were transferred to the U.S. for treatment in recent months. All recovered. Health care workers are vulnerable because of close contact with patients when they are their sickest and most contagious.
As news of Spencer's hospitalization spread, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which will conduct further tests to confirm the initial finding of Ebola, dispatched a rapid response team to New York to monitor the case.
Health officials said Spencer followed standard medical protocol by taking his own temperature twice a day and refraining from seeing any of his New York patients while awaiting the end of the 21-day incubation period for Ebola, said city Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Travis Bassett.
But as New Yorkers learned that Spencer in recent days had traveled at least three subway lines, gone bowling in Brooklyn's Williamsburg neighborhood with his fiancé and two friends, used an Uber car service ride and went elsewhere, questions rose about whether the risk of contagion could have spread.
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Seeking to reassure the millions of residents and daily visitors to the five boroughs, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Friday said Spencer was well aware he would not be contagious and a potential threat to others unless he developed a fever and started experiencing other Ebola symptoms.
"This is a doctor who's taking his temperature twice and day and obviously concluded that he was not symptomatic, and that's why he went out, still in a limited way. He went bowling with two friends. He was with his fiancé and he took the subway," Cuomo said during a Friday morning appearance on NBC's Today show.
"As soon as he had a fever, he presented himself to the hospital. All of the procedures thereon were exactly according to the book," added Cuomo.
"He is a committed and responsible physician who always puts his patients first,'' New York Presbyterian Hospital said in a statement.
President Obama spoke to Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Thursday night and offered the federal government's support. He asked them to coordinate with Ron Klain, the White House's newly appointed "Ebola czar," and public health officials in Washington.
At the same time, city and state officials moved quickly to reassure New Yorkers that any threat of Ebola spreading from Spencer was negligible.
"We want to state at the outset, there is no reason for New Yorkers to be alarmed," said de Blasio during a news conference Thursday night. "New Yorkers who have not been exposed to an infected person's bodily fluids are not at risk."
MAP: Ebola outbreaks worldwide
Health officials say the chances of the average New Yorker contracting Ebola, which is spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person, are slim. Someone can't be infected just by being near someone who is sick with Ebola. Someone isn't contagious unless he is sick.
Still, New Yorkers remained concerned. A few vented criticism via Twitter about Spencer's recent travels, which officials said also included a three-mile jog and a visit to The High Line, a popular elevated park on Manhattan's West Side.
STORY: Tweeters slam Ebola docs subway, bowling foray
Joshua Jones, 23, of Brooklyn, said Friday there were too many things for New Yorkers to worry about than to be concerned about contracting Ebola. Even so, Jones added he was troubled that Spencer traveled around the city despite his recent work in a country stricken with the virus outbreak.
"Why are you exploring New York City if you're a doctor who was treating Ebola patients?" said Jones. "That's inconsiderate. He's reckless. You don't go bowling when you're feeling sick."
In a sign of concern, officials took rapid steps to contain even the hint of any threat the virus might spread.
The Gutter, the popular bowling alley and bar in Brooklyn's Williamsburg neighborhood that Spencer recently visited, was closed as a precaution. Spencer's apartment in upper Manhattan's West Harlem area was cordoned off. The Department of Health was on site across the street from the apartment building Thursday night, giving out information to area residents.
Spencer's fiancé and two friends with whom he has been in contact were placed under quarantine, officials said. None of those people, along with the Uber driver with whom he rode, showed any symptoms, officials said. One contact has been hospitalized as a precaution, officials said.
"For the relevant period of time, he was only exposed to a very few people,'' Cuomo said.
The first person in the U.S. diagnosed with the disease was a Liberian man, who fell ill days after arriving in Dallas and later became the only fatality. None of his relatives who had contact with him got sick. Two nurses who treated him were hospitalized for Ebola symptoms.
One of the nurses, Nina Tham, who has been undergoing treatment at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Md., was declared free of the virus and is expected to be discharged, NIH officials said Friday. She was admitted to the hospital on Oct. 16.
From USATODAY.COM
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