From: NY Daily News
A Harlem doctor went bowling in Brooklyn before he was hospitalized for possible Ebola.
The shocking revelation that Dr. Craig Spencer was roaming around town — after sources said he first told authorities he self-quarantined himself — emerged after the medic was hauled off Thursday to Bellevue Hospital in a protective suit with symptoms of the deadly disease.
Spencer, 33, who recently returned from the disease-wracked West African county of Guinea, was suffering from nausea and had a 103-degree fever, sources said.
Preliminary results of tests that would determine whether Spencer has the city’s first confirmed case of Ebola were expected overnight, the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said in a statement.
Mayor de Blasio tried to reassure New Yorkers.
“It is our understanding very few people were in direct contact with him,” the mayor said. “Every protocol has been followed. We're hoping for a good outcome for this individual.”
Doctors Without Borders, with whom Spencer was working in Guinea, said in a statement their doctor “notified our office this morning to report having developed a fever.”
And New York-York Presbyterian Hospital Columbia, where Spencer is on staff, insisted “he has not been to work at our hospital and has not seen any patients at our hospital since his return from overseas.”
But Spencer hit the lanes in Williamsburg on Wednesday and he used Uber taxis to get around, sources said.
He was at The Gutter on N. 14th St. and the Brooklyn Bowl on Wythe Ave. on Wednesday, they said.
When a reporter went by The Gutter on Thursday, it was closed and a promoter said the bar area, where a concert was supposed to be held wasn't opening due to "unforeseen circumstances."
Brooklyn Bowl, on its Facebook page, said they have not been contacted by authorities.
"We are aware of the reports that an individual who may possibly be infected with Ebola attended an event in Williamsburg last night,” it read.
Neighbors said Spencer lived with his fiancée. In an online engagement announcement that describes Spencer as a “goofball,” she is identified as Morgan Dixon.
An agitated woman who identified herself as Spencer’s fiancee showed up later at Bellevue. She too was quarantined, sources said.
Spencer returned from Africa to New York City 10 days ago via Kennedy Airport, the sources said.
At noon Thursday, FDNY hazardous materials specialists sealed-off Spencer's apartment on W. 147th St. and took the doctor out on a stretcher.
While Spencer was placed in an isolation unit at Bellevue, city health workers began tracking down anybody he might have been in contact with since returning home from Africa.
"The Health Department's team of disease detectives immediately began to actively trace all of the patient's contacts to identify anyone who may be at potential risk," Bellevue said in a statement.
Robert Cedano, the super in Spencer’s building, said firefighters took the doctor’s door off its hinges when they took him out of the apartment.
"Oh, lovely," said Brooke Christensen, who lives in the building, after learning her neighbor was taken away for Ebola testing.
"I'm not concerned," she said. "I've had no fluid exchange with my neighbors."
Neighbor John Roston said Spencer is a familiar sight in the neighborhood and often helps residents carry groceries up the stairs.
“He’s always wearing scrubs,” said Roston, 38. “I hope he feels better, I hope it's not Ebola, I hope it's the flu.”
“There’s not a bad bone in his body,” he added. “If he makes it through I'll buy him a beer."
Council Member Mark Levine, who represents the neighborhood, said state and federal officials are “responding with the highest possible level of urgency and marshalling every resource at their disposal to respond to this possible case.”
“I want to reiterate that this has not yet been confirmed as an Ebola case but every precaution is being taken as if it were,” Levine said in a statement.
Meanwhile, health care workers handed out flyers in English and Spanish with instructions on what to do is somebody suspects he or she has Ebola.
Dr. Howard Zucker, acting commissioner of the state Health Department, said Spencer is in the right place.
“That facility is prepared and equipped for the isolation, identification, and treatment of any such patients,” Zucker said.
Spencer posted a photo of himself wearing protective gear on Facebook on Sept. 18 while in the Belgian capital of Brussels, a hub for connecting flights to Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
"Off to Guinea with Doctors Without Borders (MSF)," the caption reads. "Please support organizations that are sending support or personnel to West Africa, and help combat one of the worst public health and humanitarian disasters in recent history."
The Ebola scare in Manhattan amid other developments:
Centers for Disease Control honcho Tom Frieden said he was seeing “signs of progress” in the fight against the disease, which has killed nearly 4,900 people in Africa but just one in the U.S. — a Liberian who was visiting his son in Dallas.
Frieden also called a recent mass training session for health care workers at the Javits Center “very successful” and said the exercise will be repeated next week for health care workers in California.
Frieden spoke a day after the feds imposed new rules requiring that all traveler arriving in the U.S. from Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone be monitored for three weeks, which is the incubation period for Ebola.
Under the new rules, nine people in Connecticut — none of whom are showing symptoms — have been placed in quarantine.
The African country of Mali announced it’s first case of Ebola — a 2-year-old girl who had recently been in Guinea.
Mali is the sixth country on the continent to report an Ebola case. Nigeria and Senegal also had Ebola cases — several of them fatal — and are now free of the disease.
