State of New Jersey Issues Mandatory Quarantine Order for Dr. Nancy Snyderman and Crew

Snyderman
Snyderman

The New Jersey Health Department has issued a mandatory quarantine order for Dr. Nancy Snyderman and the other members of an NBC crew who were exposed to a cameraman with Ebola. The mandatory order was issued after a voluntary 21-day isolation agreement was violated.

A spokeswoman for the state health department told the The Associated Press that Snyderman and her crew remain symptom-free and that there is no reason for concern of exposure to the deadly virus to the community. Citing privacy concerns, the spokeswoman would not give further details, including who violated the agreement and how the state learned of a violation.

Snyderman and her crew were reporting in Liberia about the Ebola outbreak in West Africa with Ashoka Mukpo, a freelance cameraman who was infected with the disease. He is now being treated in Omaha, Nebraska. The director of the Nebraska Medical Center’s isolation unit said Friday that Mukpo’s condition was slightly improved, the Associated Press reported.

After Mukpo came down with the disease on Oct. 1, the head of NBC announced in a letter that Snyderman and the rest of her crew would voluntarily be isolated for 21 days.

In a phone interview from Liberia last week for the Today Show, Snyderman said all the gear she and her crew used was being disinfected because they all shared work space and vehicles. She said she believed she and her team were at a low risk because they have been hyper-vigilant.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people exposed to the virus develop symptoms two to 21 days after their exposure. The risk of exposure for other members of the NBC crew was considered to be very low.

The isolation deal was made with the CDC, state and local health officials.

“Unfortunately, the NBC crew violated this agreement and so the Department of Health today issued a mandatory quarantine order to ensure that the crew will remain confined until Oct. 22,” the spokeswoman for the New Jersey Health Department told the Associated Press.

NBC told the Associated Press today that the network could not comment on any individual case, but said the team was deemed to be low-risk upon its return from Liberia and its members agreed to follow guidelines set by local health authorities.

“We fully support those guidelines and continue to expect that they be followed,” the representative said. “Our team are all well with normal temperatures, which they check multiple times a day, and they are also in daily contact with local health officials.”

The violation was first reported on Planet Princeton after several readers saw Snyderman in public. The Planet Princeton story was picked up Friday by websites that cover the media industry, including JimRomenesko,com and Mediabistro.

Several Planet Princeton readers reported seeing Snyderman in public this week. One reader allegedly saw Snyderman sitting in her car outside of the Peasant Grill in Hopewell Boro Thursday afternoon. A reader reported that a man who was with her got out of the car and went inside the restaurant to pick up a take-out order. Another man was in the back seat of her black Mercedes. Snyderman had sunglasses on and had her hair pulled back, the reader said.

Editor’s Note: Planet Princeton took the information given by readers such as the detailed descriptions of the car, and the other information and used other sourcing to verify that Snyderman had been out. Some officials talked to us for background but did not want to be on record.

91 Comments

  1. Thank you Planet Princeton! You have played a vital role in keeping us all safe.

      1. Has nothing to do with being liberal. Has everything to do with being stupid. Stupid comes in all forms.

  2. Crew members–plural? Are additional members of the NBC crew in Princeton? Think that needs to be investigated and disclosed if true. What might they, who are presumably less recognizable than “Dr.” Nancy, have gotten away with before someone, thank heavens, blew the whistle on this unconscionable breach of the agreement with the cdc et. al.? This just keeps getting worse and worse.

    1. Evidently there are at least three quarantined people here in Princeton. Coincidentally, or perhaps not, there were three people in the car in Hopewell, one of whom entered the restaurant.

  3. The isolation deal was made with the CDC, and state and local health officials.

    “Unfortunately, the NBC crew violated this agreement and so the Department of Health today issued a mandatory quarantine order to ensure that the crew will remain confined until Oct. 22,” the state Health Department said in a statement to the Associated Press.

    ——

    Absolutely despicable that NBC decided to send a crew over in the first place (they were there are unnecessary observers and not as missionaries ) and a shameful day for the network that its crew has now been forced into quarantine due to some apparent breach of voluntary quarantine. Arrogance is one of the most disturbing human failings.

    1. Snyderman believes she is above it all – doesn’t have to play by the rules. Our arrogance and perceived invincibility is a problem. Confidence and a “can do” attitude is one thing. Arrogance resulting in stupid actions is quite another.

    2. Do
      as I say, not as I do? That’s the way to get the public to respect your
      opinions. Maybe you need to get a more responsible physician as your
      correspondent. I know I don’t trust her anymore. Sheesh!

  4. The behavior of the members of this news crew should be a cautionary example. The common assumption that Americans would behave much better than Africans in the event of a serious Ebola outbreak is both arrogant and wrong.

      1. Respectfully Mr Williams, thousands have died in W. Africa. Containment is only prudent. You don’t start hanging new drapes when the house is still on fire. What you fail to realize that if an outbreak occurs in the US, the outbreak will overwhelm our health care system. While ER’s are being shut down to decontaminate, patients with other emergencies will be redirected to other crowded hospitals reducing quality of care. Until that hospital also gets shut down as well.

      2. Yes it’s true that there is alot of fear of Ebola, but much of it justified. Ebola is a very different disease than AIDS. Public health guidelines state that you should not touch someone with Ebola — and that you are a close contact if you come within three feet of someone who has Ebola. This was certainly not the case with AIDS.

        I had friends and close neighbors who had AIDS in the 1980s before there was successful treatment ,and I treated them completely normally — touching them and working closely with them. This would not be possible obviously with Ebola even though, like AIDS, it is transmitted by bodily fluids.

        In West Africa, health officials are trying to communicate the public health message that people shouldn’t touch people with Ebola or the bodies of those that have passed away — this is a major source of transmission of the disease. It must be heartbreaking to see your child or parent suffering from Ebola and be told you should not touch them or not bury as is custom. I’m not sure that the problem is ignorance and fear in West African nations.

    1. Why should insurance pay? These people went to a country with a highly contagious, deadly disease. NBC should foot the bill for everything. If the crew violate the quarantine, they should be held accountable and personally liable for anything that happens as a result. If you don’t want to pay, don’t go – and don’t send your employees.

  5. Another entitled, left wing “journalist” who thinks the rules don’t apply to them. I wonder if she ever held an illegal “assault” rifle magazine in her hand, like David Gregory did?

    And she’s a doctor to boot, which means she should know better. What an pompous, selfish, arrogant little b!tch, putting the population at risk to appease her own cabin fever.

    She should be arrested and thrown in a quarantined jail cell.

      1. Reckless endangerment; Violation of a voluntary health quarantine; And if (God forbid) she starts displaying ebola symptoms, attempted murder of the general population…

    1. I agree. I found it funny after her last interview telling the American people that there is no way to get it. Next day her camera man was sick. Karma??

    2. How do you know she’s left wing? And there are plenty of right wingers who think the rules don’t apply to them. She is just stupid.

  6. No thanks to you Planet Princeton. Culture of fear and fear-mongering do not equal journalism.

    1. That’s a bit harsh- all Planet Princeton did was report something that happened. There is a case that more medical context would have been helpful, but if you want to see fear-mongering, check out Jeff Edelstein’s utterly irresponsible column in the ‘Trentonian’. With a public health issue like this, it’s a tough call for the media. It’s clear that many members of the public are not well informed about the threat from Ebola, and there is a risk of hysteria. It will be interesting to see how this is handled in the ‘Topics’ and ‘Packet’. The whole thing would be a good case for Brooke Gladstone.

    2. This is not about fear mongering. NBC and Nancy Snyderman should not have agreed to a voluntary quarantine if they were not going to follow it.

    3. Planet Princeton is simply reporting what happened. People are doing the fear and panic thing to themselves.

      “I must not fear.
      Fear is the mind-killer.
      Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
      I will face my fear.
      I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
      And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
      Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
      Only I will remain.”

      1. I volunteer Khurt L. Williams to go and take care of the people who have come down with Ebola. Heck to him it is no big deal. Let SFB and Kyrstalknapp join him.

  7. THE HUBRIS of these cretins. Now I’m wondering if she’s even a real doctor. PATHETIC. NBC, FIRE every single EGOMANIAC involved.

  8. Of course when Brian Williams interviews her they’ll both make it sound like an over-reaction by the CDC. We’re the guardians of the public’s right to know so rules don’t apply.

    1. She’ll be lucky if she’s still employed by the end of the quarantine. Clearly NBC is trying to wait this out, hoping it will go away over the long weekend. So far they have done a pretty good job of suppressing the fact that their vaunted phony Dr. Nancy–as opposed to some other crew members–apparently broke the quarantine. Some pieces have connected the dots by referring to the Planet Princeton report; more, hopefully, will follow. Wait until Fox News, the talk radio folks, etc. get a hold of this–and they will, with a vengeance. The ball has only just started to roll. Moreover, the woman who runs NBC News was about an inch from getting canned before this broke. I suspect she or Snyderman, or both, will be out by the end of next week.

      1. This woman has no concern or respect for others health. For someone that is supposed to be so knowledgeable in the medical field, her creditability just went in the toilet. She shouldn’t be working for NBC.
        Concerned Princeton/NYC resident !

  9. Hopefully she will be billed for any reduction in business that the Peasant Grill sees over the coming weeks. I know I won’t be going there anytime soon.

    Also, what the heck was she doing riding around in a car? What if she had a car accident? Are the firemen and EMTs in our area trained to deal with this kind of a hyper infectious pathogen?

    By going out of her home she essentially became a bioterrorist and law enforcement officials should bring the appropriate charges against.

  10. Once again, Planet Princeton has shown itself to be on the ball. This was clearly a case of the people’s right to know and PP saw to it that we were informed.

  11. *On a related note, the public has been given next to no information on cameraman Ashoka Mukpo’s condition. Why is that? His Buddhist priest status? His mother’s British über entitlement? His dad, Dr. Levy, being an MD … or Mukpo’s working for NBC (of all places) as a freelancer? The public needs to know, and until we get regular, credible updates on Mukpo’s condtion — all these days later — of course the NBC team that worked with Mukpo needs to be quarantined!
    Thanks to Ms. Knapp and Princeton Planet for a job well done.

    1. Huh? There have been daily news updates with interviews from both his father and doctors. All you need to do is search his name on google news. Today’s report is that he is doing markedly better, after 48 hours of steady improvements.

  12. Make that: Planet Princeton, please and thank you. Love Princeton and area.
    T. diNovi, Silicon Valley

  13. Have lost all respect for Snyderman. You can be sure I’ll change the channel if I ever see her on TV again.

      1. Or just be smart and don’t watch biased cable news. Abc gives about a third of the story and hides the rest. Online news especially overseas websites are your best chance of getting the whole story.

  14. The public is getting more status updates on the Spanish nurse with ebola, in Spain, than on NBC freelance cameraman Ashoka Mukpo, Dr. Snyderman’s team member, getting treatment for ebola here in the US.
    Why is that? Ebola is deadly, highly virulent, and exponentiating, and while Dr. Snyderman says she and her team were “meticulous,” clearly Mr. Mukpo was not. Likewise the Spanish nurse in critical condition with ebola.
    Everyone needs to read the New York Times op-ed of 09/11/14, written by a leading MD-scientist in infectious diseases: What We’re Afraid To Say About Ebola.
    This is no time to be cavalier. Especially you, Dr. Nancy and team.
    Kudos to Ms. Knapp and Planet Princeton.

    1. There have been status updates every single day since Ashoka Mukpo was diagnosed. Literally. I’ve been following it closely. Just search his name on google news each day.

      1. There are definitely updates on Mukpo on NBC’s site – they’re suddenly reporting that he has turned the corner for the better – what convenient timing. Not a word on their site about Snyderman and her crew hypocritically breaking their much touted quarantine. But in my opinion, her whole brand is dead meat. They might as well throw her and the rest of the “good time lunch bunch” under the bus and get this over with.

        1. They are suddenly reporting that he is doing better because he is doing better. No one has suggested he’s out of the woods, but we hope so.

  15. Absolutely me too, Chris. Also, much lost repect for Brian Williams and NBC news for enabling this — and for allowing a shroud of secrecy around Mr. Ashoka Mukpo, Snyderman’s cameraman receiving around-the-clock intensive care for ebola, in Nebraska.

  16. Now consider Ms. Snydermans agenda on vaccination. She is a shill for big pharma and a danger to our children’s health. Looks like adults aren’t safe either.

  17. Just another example of the “elite” who think they do not have to follow any laws, rules or even suggestions they do not wish to follow. After all they know better than the peasants.

  18. God she is soooo special!
    There is no way Ebola would dare touch her!
    Hey, don’t worry about it!
    Who cares that she was in a car with others in it, who cares that one person went into a restaurant to get take out. I’m sure him exposing the person taking the money, or the hostess, or any customers around him really don’t care that his friend might have had contact with the virus.
    She is just to special to get it!
    No worries people!
    Oh wait a minute, when it was discovered she left quarantine she was placed on Mandatory Quarantine!
    No worries, nothing to worry about here!

  19. She’s constantly telling people to get vaccinated to prevent spreading diseases; but then, after acknowledging a potential for the spread of infection by agreeing to a “voluntary” quarantine, she violates that quarantine. A clear case of “do as I say, not as I do”.

    She always likes promoting the notion that other people are smarter than us, and know more than us; and that the government isn’t doing anything deceitful, and we should just trust our “betters”. Well, it seems she is getting a taste-of-her-own-medicine (pun intended); because now, she is seeing just how “voluntary” that quarantine really is.

    It was never really “voluntary”, as any sane person would understand the word. As long as everyone was willing to agree to a quarantine, the government was thrilled to call it “voluntary”, because it SOUNDS better than the reality: house arrest.

    She seems to argue for the government watching people, and coercing them into things with which they disagree. Every time she brings up vaccination, it feels like she wants people jabbed by the government “by any means necessary”.

    I guess now she’ll get to experience the iron fist of government for herself. The velvet gloves are off now: time for her to feel what it is that makes reasonable people distrust “Big Brother”.

    If (God forbid) this disease does spread, maybe her next reporting assignment can be from quarantine inside one of the “non-existent” FEMA camps of the “non-existent Big Brother”.

    1. Great post. Spot on! She promotes the greater good until she is personally impacted, then all bets are off…She’s chided those of us who have decided against vaccinating our children (in our case due to a very severe adverse reaction after vaccinating our first child) for years.

      She chose to endanger the public at large because she wanted to go out for some takeout. We’ve chosen not to vaccinate to protect our children from further damage.

    2. On NBC Nightly News tonight, this is what she gave as an “apology”(?):

      “While under voluntary quarantine guidelines, which called for our team to avoid public contact for 21 days, members of our group violated those guidelines and understand that our quarantine is now mandatory until 21 days have passed. … …As a health professional I know that we have no symptoms and pose no risk to the public, but I am deeply sorry for the concerns this episode caused. …”

      You can read the rest of it here:

      https://www.tmz.com/2014/10/13/dr-nancy-snyderman-ebola-quarantine-statement-symptoms-nbc-news/

      “Members of our group violated”–no “I violated”, or even “we violated”. “As a health professional”, she is “deeply sorry” for… what “members of [her] group” did?

      What can you say? “they’re gonna go ‘don’t tell me what to do'”… …”just get your [expletive] vaccine”:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OtvzHwxLC4

  20. They can have daily live updates from quarantine

    NBC- “Reporting live from confinement…. doctor how are you holding up?”

    NS- “Well, once again we have been given a TV dinner and lime
    jello… did I mention how much I despise lime jello? And tell those
    networks that soap operas need some new writers, it’s so boring!!”

    NBC- “Have you seen or heard anything regarding new developments?”

    NS -”We;, they did find a benign cyst on the sound guys left big toe
    and my producer had a mole removed from his back yesterday, but they
    still have TIME magazine from 1989 in here…. it is driving me crazy”

  21. I figure that is what she gets for lieing to us and sticking her head in obolas mouth telling us how hard it is to get it as per her last interview. This is why you haven’t seen her on TV. Political hack doctor indeed.

  22. Doctor or not, it’s people like Dr. Nancy Snyderman who think they are invincible. Sure, she may not develop Ebola (which can take several days to 3 weeks to develop) but she had a complete disregard for her fellow human beings. Is she slow enough not to realize that health care professionals are contracting this disease while suited up? People are not machines, so whether or not they may have “touched their face” and breached protocol, means her camera crew could have done the same. She should be completely embarrassed and ashamed at her indiscretion.

  23. Funny. I haven’t heard much about this humongous story on our charming national news media. Why might that be, I wonder?

  24. This is crazy..The spokesperson for the health dept and NBC keep saying “they are at low risk” and “they r showing no symptoms” but WTH…there 21 days are NOT UP…I’m sure if this were another news crew NBC would be all over this story talking about how awful it is that they put the public at risk!!! I don’t care if there
    Considered Low Risk..there’s still a darn risk…

  25. And now she has been reported as violating the quarantine order to get soup. Then again if you are a member of the political/media/Hollywood elite, you are free to infect others. After all, they are only “regular people.”

  26. Typical liberal narcissism. Do as I say, not as I do. Should take her medical license away.

  27. And I had just stated over the weekend that I gave her props for her voluntary quarantine because that meant she cared more about others than herself. Boy will I eat my words.

  28. Suspend her medical license immediately and indefinitely. Her actions as a doctor are far far worse than Ray Rice’s action as a professional athlete.

  29. Dr. Nancy Snyderman’s FAKE apology. This is classic. An apology is supposed to acknowledge misconduct. But she blames it on perception, saying “As a health professional I know that we have no symptoms and pose no risk to the public, but I am deeply sorry for the concerns this episode caused.“
    Really, Nancy? Didn’t you just last week, get it wrong, and hire someone with the Ebola virus, and then proceed to spend 5 days in a car with him? And this babe goes around giving us advice on medical issues. She’s a crass opportunist who thinks the rules don’t apply to her.

  30. Why is it OK for NBC to get away with “self-disinfecting” their stuff and equipment even though they have been in an active Ebola area, but in Dallas, everything has to be removed and incinerated by a third party? How do you disinfect a camera an microphone? Why does NBC continue to be treated with privileges?

  31. Notice how she doesn’t take the blame personally: “the NBC crew violated this agreement”? She must be a star!

  32. That was an unapology, as far as I am concerned. She stated ‘some on her team’ but failed to mention that, not only was she with her team, SHE IS A MEDICAL DOCTOR! Now there is another healthcare worker affected, so her assurances that she is fine may be premature. The fact that she felt entitled enough to break CDC protocol with no regard for others show a gross lack of common sense and professionalism. She has lost all credibility with the viewing public and should be terminated. If she broke protocol and procedures this egregious at a hospital, she would have her privileges revoked. Time to cut her loose at NBC.

  33. Maybe NBC is just going to quietly decline to ask Snyderman to return to work. Or maybe Nancy and the network think she can lay low for a few months and make a come back. Given the attention span of the average American, I have to wonder if she can. My personal opinion is that she should be fired from a position of a leading expert on healthcare matters, AND that she should also have her medical license suspended for 6 months (or so) to demonstrate to other medical personnel the seriousness of violating epidemic protocols. BUT, I don’t think she should be completely stripped of her entire life and career because of it.

Comments are closed.