Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images The White House says Ebola Response Coordinator Ron Klain (right), seen with President Obama, is working behind the scenes, but there’s still confusion over what he’s actually doing.
WASHINGTON — There was confusion Monday over the government’s response to the Ebola crisis — and mystery over what President Obama’s Ebola czar was doing to address it.
As the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said mandatory quarantines are not necessary for medical workers returning from West Africa, a U.S. Army general said that he and all his troops returning from Liberia would remain in isolation for 21 days.
Meanwhile, Gov. Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie stood by their decision to go beyond CDC guidance, and require all health care workers who have been treating Ebola patients in Africa to remain in their homes for 21 days.
But some other governors, like Rhode Island Democrat Lincoln Chafee, counseled a different course. Chafee urged his colleagues to “ratchet down some of the hysteria,” since scientists say that people carrying the virus are not contagious until they show symptoms.
Through it all, the Ebola czar, longtime Democratic operative Ron Klain, remained out of sight.
“It’s a theater of the absurd. It’s laughable,” said Dr. Robert Murphy, director of the Center for Global Health at Northwestern University and a professor of medicine and biomedical engineering with much experience in Africa.
He said the lack of a visible leader quarterbacking the Ebola effort, coupled with the scattered, decentralized realities of the American health care system, created a confounding muddle.
Susan Watts/New York Daily News Gov. Cuomo on Monday defended his quarantine policy for health care workers returning to New York after having contact with Ebola patients — and joked they could read his book during their 21 days at home.At the White House, reporters confronted press secretary Josh Earnest with questions about the Ebola czar.
“What has changed since he started his job?” one reporter asked. “It appears as though this week there’s more confusion than there was last week, given what we’re seeing in New York and New Jersey, and more differences between how the states are dealing with it.”
Earnest insisted Klain was “coordinating the government response,” but he did not directly answer whether the Ebola czar needed to do more to coordinate with state governments.
“I don’t think it fuels panic because I think people understand the facts,” Earnest said.
Earnest said Klain’s work — he’s been on the job 10 days — already produced “a significant number of announcements related to the whole-of-government approach that the President has ordered to dealing with the Ebola situation.”
But had Klain been in touch with Cuomo or Christie amid their decisive but controversial actions mandating quarantines? Did the White House tell New York and New Jersey that it thought they’d gone too far?
There were no clear answers Monday, and this was nearly 48 hours after “Saturday Night Live” mocked Obama and Klain during an episode hosted by comedian Jim Carrey.
The comedy bit questioned Klain’s qualifications and whether his hiring was a political tactic in advance of crucial midterm elections.
“His principal responsibility is a behind-the-scenes role,” Earnest said.
Klain’s workload, Earnest added, “limits the amount of time he has to make the case publicly” for the Obama administration.
With Klain out of sight, it was left to Dr. Thomas Frieden, head of the CDC, to issue new Ebola guidelines Monday, recommendations that stop short of the quarantines imposed by New York and New Jersey for medical workers who’ve treated Ebola patients overseas.
The new recommendations mark an effort to create a national standard.
Pete Souza/The White House Ron Klain (center) and President Obama were criticized for their failure to show leadership. Those most at risk — people who have had direct contact with the Ebola virus, such as through a needle stick — will be asked to avoid public transit and large gatherings for 21 days, and check in daily with health care officials.
In the second tier are those at “some risk,” including “health care workers who are providing direct care to Ebola patients in West Africa.” These people simply should be “intensively monitored,” including having their temperatures taken at least once a day, the CDC said.
This is more lenient than the policy issued by Cuomo and Christie, which requires 21-day quarantines for medical workers and anyone else who has had contact with Ebola patients in West Africa.
As a result of the New York and New Jersey policy, a nurse from Maine was detained at Newark Airport and held all weekend in an isolation tent with a portable toilet and no shower even after she tested negative for the virus.
In issuing the new guidelines, Frieden said he worried some of the announced state policies “have the effect of creating stigma or false impressions.”
“We do have concern that if we’re doing things that make it very difficult for (health care workers) to come back . . . they will be be less likely to go help stop it at the source,” he said.
Experts say infected people only spread the disease when they are suffering symptoms, like fever, vomiting and diarrhea. They say mandatory quarantines of people who have no symptoms are unnecessary and will discourage health workers from going to West Africa to fight the epidemic.
But the new federal guidelines are not binding — the CDC does not have such power. And states continued to move ahead on their own — as did the Pentagon.
The Army’s chief of staff, Gen. Ray Odierno, directed the 21-day controlled monitoring period for all redeploying soldiers returning from the Ebola fight in West Africa.
Maj. Gen. Darryl Williams said that the decision to isolate returning troops was taken to ensure their family members’ comfort, even though none is showing symptoms, and he does not believe any soldier under his command is at risk.
Williams returned to Italy from West Africa Sunday with 10 soldiers and with another 65 due back in two groups by Saturday. It’s just “normal concern,” Williams said. “There was nothing elevated that triggered this increased posture.” A senior defense official said Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is expected to review the recommendations on Ebola but has made no decision.
In a meeting Monday with the Daily News Editorial Board, Cuomo insisted the state quarantine policy he suddenly announced Friday had been under development for weeks.
Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images Actor Kevin Spacey (right) has played Ron Klain (left), now Ebola czar, on screen. Cuomo said he and Christie went ahead with the policy because they could no longer wait for the CDC to issue an expected update to the federal guidelines.
“Our position internally was we’re going to let the CDC go first. They were supposed to announce a policy. They didn’t, and then it got to the point where we had to announce a policy because we were there,” he said.
“This is not, ‘If this happens in the future.’ It had happened already. We were there. . . . You have people landing at airports.”
Cuomo defended his failure to tell Mayor de Blasio of the quarantine policy beforehand. He said the policy was a state responsibility, because the airports are under the control of the state, not the city.
“We can implement (the quarantine) if they don’t want to, or we can order them to do it. It’s a total state power. Through state emergency health power, you can order the local health district to do it. Period,” Cuomo said.
Earlier Monday, at a campaign event in Mineola, L.I., Cuomo downplayed the burden of the 21-day quarantine — and joked that anyone who had to be quarantined should pick up his new book as a way to pass the time.
“I’m asking those people who were in contact with infected people — stay at home for 21 days. We will pay. Enjoy your family. Enjoy your kids. Enjoy your friends,” Cuomo said. “Read a book. Read my book. You don’t have to read my book. But stay at home for 21 days.”
VIRUS BIG FACTSFive things you didn’t know about Ron Klain, President Obama’s Ebola czar:
— He’s a former chief of staff to both former Veep Al Gore and current VP Biden.
— Kevin Spacey played Klain in the 2008 movie “Recount” depicting the Bush vs. Gore presidential election fight in 2000.
— Klain served as a debate prep aide for four Democratic presidential nominees: President Obama, President Bill Clinton, Gore and John Kerry.
— He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and clerked for former Supreme Court Justice Byron White.
— The White House says Klain will stay out of the spotlight, and is instead working behind the scenes to coordinate the White House Ebola effort.
