Christie: ‘We are not moving an inch’

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Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.), in an interview Tuesday morning, strongly defended his decision to quarantine all healthcare workers returning to his state after direct contact with Ebola patients.

“This is common sense, and the members of the American public think it is common sense,” he said on NBC’s “Today” show. “We are not moving an inch.”

Christie added that he needs to be out front on the issue because officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have been “incrementalists.”

“The CDC got behind on this,” he said. “Folks got infected in Texas because they were behind, but we are not going to have folks being infected in New Jersey.”

As public health officials and politicians rush to stem the spread of Ebola, Christie and a handful of other governors instituted mandatory quarantines for high-risk healthcare workers. But the policies have received pushback from both the White House and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as an undue burden on healthcare workers that could discourage them from heading to West Africa to fight the virus.

For Christie, nurse Kaci Hickox served as the flash point for criticism over the policy. Hickox returned from treating Ebola patients in West Africa and was placed under quarantine, after officials say she started exhibiting symptoms consistent with the disease. But she argues that she hadn’t actually had symptoms and that the quarantine was “inhumane” and an overreaction.

She’s hired a lawyer to look into possible legal action against New Jersey. She said her isolation tent at a Newark hospital lacked a shower and a television. After a test with the CDC came back negative, she was released to her home in Maine.

Despite criticism, Christie defended his policy and the treatment of Hickox. While he said that he understood her frustration, Christie said that he was acting in the best interest of New Jersey.

“She presented at the airport as someone who had direct contact with folks that had the Ebola virus and then she became symptomatic,” Christie said. “If she had never presented any symptoms, our policy would have been to send her back to Maine and ask her to quarantine.”

“Governors ultimately have the responsibility to protect the public health and public safety of the people within their borders.”

He also hit back on the media’s portrayal of his policy.

“All we are talking about is folks who have been directly in contact as healthcare workers with folks who actively infected with the virus,” he said. “It’s not all travelers, the reporting has been very sloppy on this fact.”