What Is Even Going On?

[Content Note: Illness.]

In flagrant disregard of science to pander to public alarmism, Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie have enacted Ebola policy instating mandatory quarantines. Which, of course, went very wrong very quickly.

Kaci Hickox, a nurse who just returned from volunteering in Sierra Leone, was determined to possibly have Ebola by the most absurd standard, and was forcibly quarantined in abysmal conditions: An unheated tent wearing nothing but paper scrubs. In October. In New Jersey.

Hickox said over the weekend: "This is an extreme that is really unacceptable, and I feel like my basic human rights have been violated. ...I just feel like fear is winning right now, and when fear wins, everyone loses."

After seeing the response to Hickox's treatment in New Jersey, Gov. Cuomo has relented and said New York Ebola quarantines can be spent at home. But both governors are standing by their policies, despite the fact the White House has asked them to reconsider—and despite the fact that Dr. Anthony Fauci, a top official from the National Institutes of Health who is spearheading efforts to combat Ebola, warns the quarantines could backfire:

Fauci warned Sunday the requirements that returning health workers spend 21 days in mandatory quarantine could discourage health workers from volunteering in countries devastated by the Ebola crisis.

..."I don't want to be directly criticizing the decision that was made but we have to be careful that there aren't unintended consequences," Fauci said on NBC's Meet The Press. "The best way to stop this epidemic is to help the people in West Africa. We do that by sending people over there, not just from the U.S.A, but from other places. We need to treat returning people with respect."

Good suggestion.