New Jersey Voters Approve of Christie’s Ebola Quarantine
Are you terrified of the Ebola virus even though there have been no recorded cases in your state? If you live in New Jersey, you are!
New Jersey voters did not share in the wide mockery Chris Christie received — everywhere from Jon Stewart to Saturday Night Live to Tom the Dancing Bug — for his mandatory quarantine on nurse Kaci Hickox. In a new poll from Monmouth University (below), 67 percent of New Jersey voters say they approved of Chris Christie’s quarantine of nurse Kaci Hickox. Only 19 percent disapproved.
Hickox tested negative for the Ebola virus and showed no symptoms; Ebola is transmitted by direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person. Christie says she had a fever when she was quarantined, while Hickox says she was not ill at any time. Hickox was kept in a tent in a Newark parking lot during her quarantine.
Christie received high marks for how he handled the Ebola virus in New Jersey as a whole, too. Fifty-three percent of voters approved of Christie’s response to any threat from Ebola while only 27 percent disapproved. (New Jersey voters just really hate that nurse, apparently.)
“Gov. Christie has made a good read of how uneasy the public is with the seemingly uncertain response from the feds,” Monmouth University Polling Institute president Patrick Murray said in a statement. “The Ebola issue has offered him an opportunity to take on the mantle of leadership.”
Only 37 percent of those surveyed in the Monmouth University poll approved of the federal response to the Ebola virus. Seventy-four percent of Jersey voters say Ebola is a major or minor threat to the state.
