Rick Scott is ordering twice daily monitoring for anyone returning from places the CDC designates as affected by Ebola. The Governor on Saturday signed an order giving the Florida Health Dept. authority to monitor individuals for 21 days. He also asked the CDC for specific information about the risk level for four people who have already returned from West Africa to the Sunshine State.
We don't know the names of those individuals at this point. Florida's policy now matches that of Illinois, New York and New Jersey.
Yesterday the governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, was here in Florida once again on the campaign trail with Governor Scott, where he answered questions about his very controversial quarantine of a patient at a Newark hospital suspected of possibly having the Ebola virus. Feeling the heat from that very nurse, Christie said that the CDC - and not New Jersey — had been responsible for hospitalizing Casey Hickox and giving her the Ebola test in the first place, according to the New York Times.He also released her from that quarantine to Maine, where she lived and where state officials now will deal with her care.
Not surprisingly, Christie was defiant when questioned by reporters about Hickox' release, saying “I didn’t reverse my decision.Why are you saying I reversed my decision? If she was continuing to be ill, she’d have to stay.”
Governor Scott has not had to deal with that type of scrutiny, because no one in Florida has been quarantined against their will. But it certainly makes for dicey politics. Governor Cuomo in New York, who originally sided with Christie on the mandatory quarantine and is on the ballot next week, has backed down somewhat.
At the infamous FanGate debate, when asked to say something nice about Governor Scott, Charlie Crist praised him for his work on Ebola. In all due respect, however, Scott hadn't really had do too much at that time other than issue sharply worded press releases regarding how the Obama administration was handling the crisis. The way the situation is still out of control in West Africa, this is something that Scott, or possibly Charlie Crist - will be dealing with for months to come.
At a press conference in Tampa yesterday, Senator Bill Nelson gave a somewhat convoluted comment when asked if U.S. troops returning back from West Africa should be automatically quarantined for 21 days. He did say that at least they would be paid by the military if that was the case.
"Now when you apply that to the general public, an American civilian for example returning from West Africa, hen you’ve got a little different situation. DOD employees, their going to get their pay regardless of whether they’ve been put in quarantine. What about an American civilian who can’t go back to work and now were going to put them in quarantine?" he asked.
In other news,
In a CL exclusive, we reported yesterday afternoon that Douglas MacKinnon, the former Bush and Reagan speechwriter hired by the Tampa Tribune in the past year to write incredibly conservative opinion pieces, was fired by Mother Trib yesterday. The paper isn't commenting, but his termination coincides with a new book he's just penned that calls for Florida, Georgia and South Carolina to secede from the rest of America, because we embrace "traditional values" here.
Solar power advocates say they want to hear more specifics from Charlie Crist and Rick Scott when it comes to what they would do over the next four years to truly make Florida the Sunshine State.
Unlike Bob Buckhorn, Rick Kriseman isn't "going there" when it comes to weighing in on Amendment Two, the medical marijuana initiative.
And this past Saturday Mayor Kriseman joined up with Gulfport Mayor Sam Henderson for a street clean-up of 49th Street, which cuts through both cities. CL's Ashley Whitney has the details.