NEW YORK STATE (WRGB) — CBS6 anchor Lara Bryn sat down for a one-on-one interview with the New York health commissioner just days after state health officials confirmed three New Yorkers who were exposed to hantavirus aboard a Dutch cruise ship are being held in quarantine in Nebraska. They have not shown symptoms so far.
New York State Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald said the three are among 18 Americans who were exposed on the ship. They are being monitored at a quarantine center in Nebraska, and McDonald confirmed that the “monitoring” is, in fact, a quarantine. McDonald said the three New Yorkers are asymptomatic and will remain in Nebraska for 42 days, which he said is the incubation period for hantavirus.
McDonald said that once the quarantine period ends, the travelers would not face restrictions on travel. “So if they come back after June 22nd, after the quarantine’s completed, they can do whatever they want to do,” McDonald said. “They’re free to roam about the country and the world at that time, because the quarantine is over. In other words, the incubation period is past. So there’s no risk at that point.”
He said the travelers could choose to return to New York before the quarantine period ends, but officials are advising against it. “Our strong recommendation is they stay in Nebraska,” McDonald said.
If they do return early, McDonald said they would not fly commercially. “But were they to choose to come back, they would come back through non-commercial air,” he said, adding that the CDC would arrange transportation to an airport, and New York would then coordinate travel to wherever they would complete their monitoring period. “And then we would have to make sure that we talk to them every day,” he said.
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Asked how a quarantine can be effective if people can leave voluntarily, McDonald said local health departments have the authority to issue enforceable quarantine orders. “So even though people can voluntarily leave, once they get into a jurisdiction like that of a local health department, what a local health department could do is place them in quarantine through a quarantine order,” he said. “In other words, local health departments, and some state health departments, can actually issue a quarantine order where you have to stay in quarantine.”
McDonald said New York state law does not allow the state health department to issue a quarantine order. “So the way New York State law is, the state health department can’t create a quarantine order; only a local health department can,” he said. “So we would have to recommend that to the local health department, and they would have to opt to do that.”
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Additional portions of the interview, including McDonald’s response to questions about the CDC’s handling of the situation, are available on the CBS6Albany YouTube page.