What does it mean to be on new Ebola restrictions?
Texas health officials are asking 75 healthcare workers who were exposed to the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the U.S., Thomas Eric Duncan, to sign a document that outlines restrictions on their travel and movement.
Basically, about all they can do is stay home.
The restrictions include staying off all public transportation, and staying out of public spaces, for 21 days from their last contact with Duncan. They also must have their conditions monitored twice daily, including one face-to-face encounter. The instructions do not stipulate with whom.
They also have been offered a room at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, on a non-admission status, if they would help with monitoring.
Those who sign the document also acknowledge that failure to follow the voluntary order could result in a “communicable disease control order.”
A control order includes nearly identical provisions that are mandatory, but includes allowing health authorities to take blood or other samples. Failure to follow the order is considered a Class B misdemeanor under Texas law.
About 238 people are being monitored.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta is monitoring 143 people in Texas as of Friday afternoon; the number includes the Texas healthcare workers who cared for Duncan.
Only 11 people had direct contact with Duncan, who died Oct. 8. Four of those are the family members whose quarantine ends Monday.
That leaves 132 people who were possibly exposed to the Ebola virus from contact with Duncan or either of the two nurses who cared for him and became infected with the virus.
In Ohio, officials say 16 people who had contact with nurse Amber Vinson, who is being treated at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, are being monitored.
Another 79 passengers on Frontier Flight 1143 are being monitored because they traveled in the same plane as Vinson from Ohio to Dallas, according to Texas officials.
Times staff writer Molly Hennessy-Fiske contributed to this report.
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