WASHINGTON: The mayor of New York said Sunday that a quarantined nurse had been "disrespected," but gave no indication he would bow to White House pressure over the controversial move intended to stop the spread of Ebola in the United States.
Kaci Hickox, who became the first American health worker isolated under the new quarantine orders on Friday, claims she was made to feel like a criminal and that her compulsory quarantining was "inhumane."
New York, New Jersey and Illinois have drafted in measures that see medics returning from West Africa -- epicenter of the most deadly Ebola outbreak on record -- quarantined for three weeks, while a fourth state, Florida, has ordered twice-daily monitoring during that period.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio attempted to quell the firestorm over Hickox's outspoken remarks over the weekend, in which she hit out at the attitude of officials toward her from the moment she landed at Newark International Airport in New Jersey on Friday.
"This hero was treated with disrespect, was treated with a sense that she had done something wrong, when she hadn't; was not given a clear direction," de Blasio told a press conference.
"We owe her better than that and all the people better than that."
Health authorities have also expressed concern that the strict new rules will discourage badly needed health workers from volunteering in the crisis in West Africa, where more than 4,900 people have already died of the hemorrhagic Ebola virus.
And US President Barack Obama's administration has urged the governors of New York and New Jersey to reverse the quarantine rules, The New York Times reported.
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