“We want to state at the outset there is no reason for New Yorkers to be alarmed,”? was New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s message to New Yorkers as he told reporters late Thursday regarding Craig Spencer, a doctor recently returned to NYC from West Africa after working with Doctors Without Borders has tested positive for the Ebola Virus. ?He is the first person diagnosed with the virus in NYC as reported by NYC authorities late Thursday.
Dr. Spencer, 33, returned from Guinea October 17, after treating Ebola patients, and developed the symptoms for Ebola including fever, nausea and fatigue.
At a news conference yesterday in NYC, Mayor de Blasio was joined by NY State Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City’s Health Commissioner, Dr. Mary Travis Bassett. ?All three stressed there was no need for alarm for all of NYC’s over 8 million residents to remain calm and not to engage in a panic.
Governor Cuomo stressed, “We are as ready as one could be for this circumstance,” adding “We had the advantage of learning from the Dallas experience,” referring to what happened in Texas, where a man from Liberia was diagnosed with Ebola and two health care workers who treated him later contracted the virus.
Dr. Spencer is in isolation at New York’s Bellevue Hospital. ?Governor Cuomo reminded the press that he personally designated that hospital, along with seven others statewide, as part of an Ebola preparedness plan.
Spencer may have gone to a restaurant and used the city’s subway system before showing symptons but feeling ill, but Mayor de Blasion stressed that the likelihood of him spreading the virus was low,?”Ebola is very difficult to contract. Being on the same subway car or living near someone with Ebola does not put anyone at risk.”
Dr. Bassett reaffirmed the Mayor’s comment, “At the time that the doctor was on the subway he did not have fever … he was not symptomatic,” and went on to claim the chances of anyone contracting the virus from contact with Spencer were “close to nil.”
Already on the ground in New York City, members of The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are preparing to take a specimen from Dr. Spencer to send to CDC headquarters in Atlanta for testing.
Officials have been in contact with three people who had been in contact with Spencer — his fianc?e and two friends — with plans to quarantine and monitor them.
The physician’s employer, New York’s Columbia Presbyterian Hospital released a statement confirming that Dr. Spencer?”Has not been to work at our hospital and has not seen any patients at our hospital since his return from overseas.”
As part of New York City’s Ebola preparedness plan?health department workers were canvassing NYC neighborhoods, distributing information on the disease door-to-door, according to WABC News.
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