The Obama administration said Tuesday that a quarantine policy in place for Army troops leaving Ebola-stricken West Africa would not work for the civilian population — its latest attempt to explain the dissonance between its military policy and the criticism it doled out to states with strict solution measures in place for returning health workers.
President Obama has committed up to 3,000 troops to the fight against Ebola in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Already, at a least a dozen troops have been isolated at a base in Italy, even as administration officials say quarantine rules in states such as New Jersey could dissuade health care workers from joining the fight in West Africa.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said it is more efficient for the military to be ordered into isolation, as thousands of them come and go from the front liens of the fight against Ebola. The military is ordered to do things, while aid workers volunteer.
“In fact, implementing this military policy in a civilian context would only have the effect of hindering our Ebola response by dissuading civilian doctors and nurses from traveling to West Africa to stop the outbreak in its tracks,” he said.
The Army’s quarantine in Italy seemed to catch observers off guard this week, because the Defense Department has not issued a blanket policy for all members of the military. And the move occurred while certain governors caught flack for ordering aid workers into quarantine — at home in many circumstances — if they showed any symptoms.
In New Jersey, a nurse said airport screeners handled her inhumanely and took an inaccurate fever reading from her forehead, forcing her to live in a Newark hospital tent before she was allowed to head home to Maine on Monday.
The White House has refused to detail any conversations the administration may have had with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie or others, but urged reporters not to equate its approach in the states with its rules for the military.
“It’s not uncommon for the policy that’s implemented for civilians to be different than the policy that’s implemented for our military service personnel. That’s not unusual,” Mr. Earnest said. “And that takes a variety of forms. In this case we’re talking about a policy that’s still under consideration, I might add, by the secretary of defense.”
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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