Breaking: Mayor de Blasio Addresses Media About Ebola

At a hastily convened press conference this afternoon at the Office of Emergency Management in Downtown Brooklyn, Mayor Bill de Blasio had one message to New York City residents following the the City’s first confirmed case of Ebola: everything is under control.

“I want to repeat what I said last night,” Mayor d Blasio said, “there is no cause for everyday New Yorkers to be alarmed.”

Flanked in front of a throng of news media by Dr. Mary Bassett, commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene; Dr. Rima Khabbaz, Deputy Director for Infectious Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, and Dr. Rama Raju, President and CEO, NYC Health & Hospitals Corporation, the Mayor stated flatly that “Ebola is an extremely hard disease to contract, transferred only through direct contact with the blood or bodily fluids” of an infected individual.

De Blasio was adamant that Ebola cannot be transmitted through casual contact or in airborne fashion.

Seeking to allay fears generated by the possible diagnosis of the deadly infectious virus in Craig Spencer, a 33 year old physician from Manhattan who yesterday was positively diagnosed by the CDC, Mayor de Blasio said that there’s no reason for New Yorkers to change their routine in any way.

According to the Mayor, once Dr. Spencer was identified as possibly being infected, the response by the City’s health apparatus “played out exactly as the protocol dictated, literally to the ‘T’.”

Spencer, who returned on October 17 from Guinea after working for Doctors Without Borders treating Ebola victims, had been carefully monitoring his health when—after a night of activity Wednesday, including a run in Riverside Park, a stroll along the High Line and a night of bowling at The Gutter in Williamsburg—he noted feverish symptoms.

On Thursday morning, with a temperature of 100.3, Spencer connected with the city’s health infrastructure, where he was interviewed by a specially trained EMST team and subsequently taken to Bellevue Hospital. Spencer is currently in isolation at Bellevue and “causes no threat,” said de Blasio.

A Health Department team of “detectives” has been at work since the report came in retracing all of Dr. Spencer’s steps. Mayor de Blasio promised a “detailed delineation of those findings” later in the day.

In addressing what New Yorkers might do to help in this crisis, the Mayor suggested two possibilities.

First, if anyone believes that they or a loved one is at risk for Ebola, meaning they have traveled in the last 21 days from one of the three African nations afflicted by Ebola—Guinea, Liberia and Nigeria—and have experienced a fever, they should call 911 or go immediately to a hospital emergency room.

Second, the Mayor urged New Yorkers to get a flu shot if they haven’t already because flu-like symptoms can appear similar to Ebola. The Mayor stressed that this will help the City’s medical professionals to focus on the crisis properly.

The Gutter Bowling Alley to Reopen:
The City has allowed The Gutter, the Williamsburg bowling alley where Dr. Spencer traveled on Wednesday night, to reopen following an examination by city health professionals. According to CBS news, Tom Power, owner of The Gutter; voluntarily closed the bowling alley when he was alerted to the visit by Dr. Spencer.

PHOTO CAPTION: Mayor Bill de Blasio arriving at a press conference at the Office of Emergency Management in Brooklyn

PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Randazzo for Patch