New York and New Jersey soften Ebola quarantine restrictions, allowing for in-home isolation

NEWARK, N.J., Oct. 27 (UPI) -- New York and New Jersey are softening their mandatory 21-day Ebola quarantines, allowing doctors and nurses returning from West Africa to be quarantined at home rather than a government regulated facility.

The move comes amid overwhelming criticism from the medical community that quarantining everyone who enters the U.S. from West Africa will discourage healthcare workers from combating Ebola where it's most prolific.

"Guidelines regarding how you handle people from coming back should always be based on the science, and the science tells us that people who are asymptomatic do not transmit," immunologist Anthony Fauci said on Fox News Sunday. Fauci accused Governors Christie and Cuomo of being "draconian" in their paranoia.

"That doesn't mean we're cavalier about [the risk of catching and spreading Ebola], but that means there are other steps that you can protect American people based on the scientific evidence that does not necessarily go so far as to possibly have unintended consequences of disincentivizing health care workers. The best way to protect us is to stop the epidemic in Africa, and we need those health care workers."

Kaci Hickox, the first person quarantined under the initial guidelines, publicly stated she was treated like a criminal in an op-ed for the Dallas Morning News.

"One after another, people asked me questions, Some introduced themselves, some didn't. One man who must have been an immigration officer because he was wearing a weapon belt that I could see protruding from his white coveralls barked questions at me as if I was a criminal."

Hickox was released from the Newark hospital where she was being held, after she hired and attorney and appeared to be prepared to sue the state for her release.