HOMELAND SECURITY NEWS WIRE                Oct. 27, 2014

U.S. and British insurance companies have begun to write Ebola exclusions into their policies for hospitals, event organizers, airliners, and other businesses vulnerable to disruption from the disease.

As a result, new policies and renewals will become more expensive for firms looking to insure business travel to West Africa or to cover the risk of losses from Ebola-driven business interruptions (BI).The cost of insuring an event against Ebola, for example, would likely be triple the amount of normal cancellation insurance — if the venue was in a region not known to be affected by the virus.

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http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20141027-insurance-companies-now-write-ebola-exclusions-into-policies-offer-ebolarelated-products

ABC NEWS                                          Oct. 27, 2014

by Josh Margolin

NEWARK --New Jersey has decided to release a nurse who was fighting an order that forcibly quarantined her after she returned from Africa where she treated Ebola patients.

The release was announced this morning after Kaci Hickox, hired a lawyer to sue over her mandatory 21-day quarantine. Shortly before the decision by the New Jersey Health Department, the nurse said she hopes "this nightmare of mine and the fight that I’ve undertaken is not in vain.”

UPDATE:    Under Pressure, Cuomo Loosens Policy for Ebola Quarantines in New York

NEW YORK TIMES                                                             Oct. 26, 2014

by MATT FLEGENHEIMER, MICHAEL D. SHEAR and MICHAEL BARBARO

FOX NEWS                                Oct. 26, 2014

Doctors treating New York City’s first Ebola patient have given the ailing doctor a transfusion of blood plasma from an aid worker who was infected with the deadly disease in West Africa and survived.

Dr. Craig Spencer received the donated plasma Friday from Nancy Writebol, a health care worker with the Christian organization SIM. Writebol was treated in August at Emory Hospital in Georgia.

Bellevue Hospital, where Spencer is being treated, said Saturday evening that the 33-year-old physician is “entering the next phase of his illness as anticipated with the appearance of gastrointestinal symptoms.”

The public hospital said in a statement that the patient is “awake and communicating.”

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http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/10/26/new-york-doctor-with-ebola-gets-blood-transfusion-from-aid-worker-who-survived/

WASHINGTON POST                                                                               Oct. 26, 2014

By Spencer S. Hsu and Nia-Malika Henderson

One day after governors in New York, New Jersey and Illinois imposed a mandatory 21-day quarantine on medical workers returning from Ebola-stricken countries in West Africa, public health officials in the District, Maryland and Virginia did not follow suit Saturday, intensifying a national debate over how to prevent the spread of the disease.

Health officials are working to develop a consistent approach for the area around the nation’s capital. Joxel Garcia, director of the D.C. Department of Health, said that a mandatory quarantine was not scientifically justified and could have a chilling effect on the medical personnel, many of them volunteers, needed to treat Ebola patients at home and overseas.

The differing views highlight challenges confronting federal and state politicians as well as health officials as they race to keep up with fast-changing circumstances and competing political, scientific and legal demands, experts said.

Health workers at Bellevue Hospital in New York on Oct. 8 demonstrated the gear that staff would wear to treat patients with Ebola. Credit Adrees Latif/Reuters

NEW YORK TIMES                                                                        Oct. 25, 2014

Detailed description of the differences in the way the Dallas Presbyterian Hospital and New York's Bellevue hospital handled their Ebola patients:.

"When Craig Spencer, a young doctor just back from treating patients with Ebola in Guinea, fell ill with the virus in New York on Thursday, the paramedics who went to get him were dressed in protective suits. He entered Bellevue Hospital through a rear door, far from the busy emergency room, and was taken to a state-of-the-art isolation ward that was locked and guarded.

doctorswithoutborders.org - October 25, 2014

NEW YORK – Kaci Hickox, a Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) nurse who returned to the United States from Sierra Leone on October 24, 2014, is being held in a medical isolation facility at Newark University Hospital in Newark, New Jersey.  

Preliminary blood tests reveal that she does not have the Ebola virus.

Upon arrival at Newark Liberty International Airport at approximately 1:00 PM yesterday, Ms. Hickox was taken aside for screening. Her temperature was measured and was shown to be normal. She was nonetheless held at the airport. After three hours her temperature was again taken with a forehead temperature reader. The device revealed a slight elevation in temperature. After being left alone in a room for an additional three hours, she was transported by police escort to Newark University Hospital by medical personnel in full protective gear.

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TIMES                 Oct. 25, 2014

By Charles Poladian

U.S. President Barack Obama again encouraged Americans to be “guided by the facts, not fear” in their assessments of Ebola virus disease as he discussed the first confirmed case in New York and the national response by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in his weekly address Saturday. Obama also mentioned the recoveries of Ashoka Mukpo and Nina Pham, who both tested negative for Ebola this week, and stressed the difficulty of contracting the virus.

 New York City Council District 7 Community Liason Fidel Malena hands out flyers about Ebola risk near the apartment building of Ebola patient Dr. Craig Spencer, in New York, Friday, Oct. 24, 2014. Spencer remained in stable condition while isolated in a hospital, talking by cellphone to his family and assisting disease detectives who are accounting for his every movement since arriving in New York from Guinea via Europe on Oct. 17. (AP Photo/Richard Drew) | ASSOCIATED PRESS

THE HUFFINGTON POST                                                          Oct. 24, 2014
 By Carly Schwartz, Saki Knafo, Roque Planas & Sebastian Murdock

NEW YORK -- As news of New York City's first confirmed Ebola case spreads through the city, New Yorkers -- even those at the hospital where the patient is being treated, who rode the same subway lines he traveled on and who live in his building -- are remaining markedly calm....

Zachary Hasselbring, a New York University student riding the A train, ...said  "I think everybody's overreacting a bit," he said. "It's blown out of proportion."

NEW YORK TIMES               Oct. 25, 2014
by David W. Shin and Liz Robbins

The surprise decision by the governors of New York and New Jersey yesterday to impose a mandatory quarantine on persons who arrived at area airports and had contact with Ebola infected persons has touched off concern that it will deter people from volunteering to work in West Africa.

"Among medical professionals who have been fighting Ebola in West Africa, the restrictions only intensified the debate. While a few of those interviewed said an overabundance of caution was welcome, the vast majority said that restrictions like those adopted by New York and New Jersey could cripple volunteers’ efforts at the front lines of the epidemic."

" Dr. Rick Sacra, who contracted Ebola in Liberia and was flown back to the United States to be treated in September, said...many doctors and nurses who volunteered would spend about three weeks in Africa and then return to their regular jobs. The requirement that they be quarantined at home upon their return “will effectively double the burden on those people, on the loss of productive time,” Dr. Sacra said.

UPDATE 2      U.S. nurse quarantined over Ebola criticizes her treatment and  airport temperaure reading

REUTERS    

By Jonathan Allen                                                                        Oct. 25, 2014

NEW YORK --Kaci Hickox, a nurse, returned on Friday from working with medical charity Doctors Without Borders in Sierra Leone and was placed in quarantine after arriving at Newark.

Hickox, who was transferred from the airport to a hospital where she was placed in isolation, described a confusing and upsetting experience at the airport and was worried the same treatment was in store for other American health workers trying to help.

"I ... thought of many colleagues who will return home to America and face the same ordeal," Hickox wrote in an article published on Saturday by The Dallas Morning News with the help of one of the newspaper's reporters. "Will they be made to feel like criminals and prisoners?"

In her article, Hickox ...said her temperature was normal when tested orally at the hospital, but had shown a fever when she was tested using a non-contact forehead scanner, which reflected the fact she was flustered and anxious.

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NEW YORK TIMES                    Oct. 24, 2014

by MARC SANTORA  

NEW YORK --The governors of New York and New Jersey announced Friday afternoon that they were ordering all people entering the country through two area airports who had direct contact with Ebola patients in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea to be quarantined.

The announcement comes one day after an American doctor, who had worked in Guinea and returned to New York City earlier in October, tested positive for Ebola and became the first New York patient of the deadly virus.

“A voluntary Ebola quarantine is not enough,” said Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York. “This is too serious a public health situation.”

UPDATES:  Officials Tracing New York Ebola Patient’s Movements, While Reassuring a Wary City-- Two stories

The Gutter, the bowling alley in Brooklyn that Dr. Spencer visited with friends on Wednesday night. According to Dr. Mary T. Bassett, New York City's health commissioner, Dr. Spencer was not symptomatic at the time. Credit Robert Stolarik for The New York Times

NEW YORK TIMES                                                                                     Oct. 24, 2014               

By MARC SANTORA

USA  TODAY                    Oct. 12, 2014

Melanie Eversley and Marisol Bello,

NEW YORK — As federal officials at New York's Kennedy International Airport stepped up efforts to stop the spread of the deadly Ebola virus with extensive screening of passengers arriving from countries hit hardest by the outbreak, passengers and employees were taking their own precautions.

Maria Uruchimadecriollo cleans a bathroom JFK Terminal 4 international arrivals in Jamaica, NY. Uruchimadecriollo is wearing a mask that her husband bought for her yesterday, with the hope that it would keep her safe from the Ebola virus. This is the first day that the airport will begin screening passengers for Ebola coming in from the affected areas in Africa.(Photo: Jennifer S. Altman, for USA TODAY)

Agents with the Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection screened travelers from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, taking their temperature and observing them for other Ebola symptoms.

Image: The New York City skyline.

energymanager.com - September 23rd, 2014 - Linda Hardesty

New York City is committing to an 80 percent reduction in emissions by 2050, with 2005 as a baseline. Central to that commitment, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a sweeping plan to retrofit public and private buildings – One City, Built to Last: Transforming New York City’s Buildings for a Low-Carbon Future.

Every single city-owned building with any significant energy use – about 3,000 buildings – will be retrofitted within the next ten years, by 2025, with interim goals along the way.

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