New York City physician Dr. Eric Braverman told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that Ebola patient Dr. Craig Spencer should have been quarantined, and that it should have been for a period of longer than 21 days, suggesting up to 80 days could have been advisable.
Spencer, who returned a week ago from treating Ebola patients in Guinea, was diagnosed with the disease Thursday in New York City. It was important for physicians "to protect the public" by recognizing "the virus changes" as the disease spreads, Braverman said.
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"In reality, he needed to be quarantined for 42 days or more. And, he needed to not have all those risks of contacts. Even if he had sexual contact, it may be 80 days that he should have been quarantined from sexual contact," Braverman said Friday.
Epidemics were stopped "by the basic rules of quarantine," Braverman said, explaining they expanded from "a few cases, then more cases, and then you get a significant spread." He maintained the "basic rule of hygiene is not being followed here with the quarantine" that was currently in place.
Braverman, who is the medical director for Place for Achieving Total Health (PATH) in New York, maintained the U.S. needed to better plan for Ebola, because the country was presently "not prepared for infectious disease spread." In addition, he suggested alternative treatments were not being investigated for managing the disease.
"Nobody has even tried alternative treatments in the early stages of this illness, and there are alternative treatments to be taken. There are ways to protect yourself in the immune system. There's a way in which a whole society can have a plan, but there is no plan in place," he said.
"Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough, a former Republican Florida congressman, suggested there were still many unknowns about the disease and what protocols should be taken to manage its spread.
"Everybody has made the mistake of bending over backwards, so much so to keep everybody calm. They made overstatements that ended up proving to be wrong.
"I don't like people coming out and saying, 'Oh, you can only get the virus this way, this way.' We still don't know. There's still unanswered questions. Even healthcare professionals don't know exactly how this spread," he said Friday.
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