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The Majority Support Mandatory Quarantines for Ebola Health Workers

By Cheri Cheng | Update Date: Nov 03, 2014 02:20 PM EST

The latest poll results found that the majority of Americans support the use of a mandatory ban for health care workers who have treated Ebola cases in any of the West African countries.

The poll, which was conducted by NBC News/ Wall Street Journal from October 30 to November 1, 2014, asked people whether or not they believed that a health care worker returning from Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea, should be quarantined for 21-days even if the worker does not have any symptoms of an infection. An overwhelming 71 percent stated that they would support this policy whereas 24 percent opposed.

The researchers found that support or opposition varied based on people's political affiliation, age and education level. In terms of political party, 85 percent of Republicans, 65 percent of Democrats and 60 percent of Independents agreed that mandatory quarantines should be enforced. 91 percent of people who backed the Tea Party also considered this isolation policy a necessity.

In terms of age, older people were more likely than younger people to support quarantining health care workers. Only one in 10 seniors would oppose this policy whereas one-third of the people in the age group of 18 to 34 would oppose it. Lastly, people with lower levels of education were more likely to support mandatory isolation in comparison to people with college or post-graduate degrees.

Ebola can only spread via contact with the fluids of an infected person whose symptoms have manifested. So far, there have been more than 10,000 confirmed cases with nearly 5,000 deaths.

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