WASHINGTON (AP) — Mandatory 21-day quarantines on health care workers returning from Ebola-ravaged West Africa, like those put in place by three states, can have the unintended consequence of discouraging them from volunteering, a top federal health official said Sunday. 
 
 Patient Nina Pham is hugged by Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, outside of National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Md., Friday, Oct. 24,... (Associated Press) 
 
 File-This Feb. 28, 2014, file photo shows Samantha Power, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., speaking during a news conference after a private U.N. Security Council meeting. Power is going to visit all three... (Associated Press) 
 
 Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that as a physician and scientist, he would have recommended against a quarantine. 
 
 "The best way to protect us is to stop the epidemic in Africa, and we need those health care workers so we do not want to put them in a position where it makes it very, very uncomfortable for them to even volunteer to go." he said. 
 
 He said active and direct monitoring can accomplish the same thing as a quarantine because people infected with Ebola do not become contagious until they start showing symptoms. Ebola is transmitted through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person. 
 
 New York, New Jersey and Illinois imposed mandatory quarantines after Dr. Craig Spencer, a Doctors Without Borders physician who treated patients in Guinea, was diagnosed with Ebola last Thursday. The doctor, who is now in isolation at New York's Bellevue Hospital, had been on the subway, went bowling and to a park and restaurant before showing symptoms 
 
 Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J., said he concluded the quarantine was necessary to protect public health in his state and that he thinks the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "eventually will come around to our point of view on this." 
 
 Christie said Fauci was counting on "a voluntary system with folks who may or may not comply." 
 
 The governor pointed to an NBC News crew that had returned from West Africa was supposed to self-quarantine because its cameraman was hospitalized with Ebola. "Two days later they were out picking up takeout food in Princeton and walking around the streets of Princeton," he said. The cameraman has recovered and has been released from the hospital. 
 
 Fauci said Spencer did exactly what he should have done by putting himself in isolation as soon as he developed a fever. "No one came into contact with his body fluids," Fauci said. "The risk is essentially zero, vanishingly small." 
 
 Fauci said the health care workers returning from treating Ebola patients are responsible and know that if they have symptoms there's the possibility of transmitting the disease. "They don't want to get anyone else infected," he said. 
 
 As for the unintended consequences, he said, "If we don't have our people volunteering to go over there, then you're going to have other countries that are not going to do it and then the epidemic will continue to roar," he said. 
 
 Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who is on a trip to West Africa to highlight the need for increased international support to combat Ebola, spoke of a need to ensure that returning U.S. health care workers "are treated like conquering heroes and not stigmatized for the tremendous work that they have done." 
 
 Fauci appeared on "Fox News Sunday," ABC's "This Week" and NBC's "Meet the Press." Christie was interviewed on Fox and Power spoke to NBC. ||||| New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says he has no second thoughts about enacting a 21-day medical quarantine on medical workers returning from treating Ebola patients in West Africa. 
 
 "I think this is a policy that will become a national policy sooner rather than later," the Republican governor said on "Fox News Sunday," emphasizing the population density of his state and the New York metropolitan area. 
 
 "The fact of the matter is that the CDC protocol, as Dr. [Anthony] Fauci admitted himself, had been a moving target," Christie added, referring to an earlier interview on the same show with the director of the Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases. 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: Fauci talks quarantine's 'unintended consequences') 
 
 "It was my conclusion that we needed to do this to protect the public health of the people of New Jersey," Christie said. "[New York] Gov. [Andrew] Cuomo agreed, and now [Chicago] Mayor [Rahm] Emanuel agrees, and I think the CDC eventually will come around to our point of view on this." 
 
 "This is government's job," Christie said. "We have taken this action, and I have no second thoughts about it." 
 
 (WATCH: Sunday shows in 90 seconds) 
 
 Asked to comment on the idea of a quarantine, Fauci reiterated the notion that it was unnecessary, calling it "draconian" during his appearance on "Meet the Press" on NBC." 
 
 We need to treat them, returning people, with respect, and make sure that they're really heroes," he said. "So the idea that we're being a little bit draconian, there are other ways to protect. There's monitoring, there's direct monitoring, there's active monitoring. We don't necessarily need to do that." 
 
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 Read more about: Quarantine, Chris Christie, Ebola, Anthony Fauci ||||| Quarantines of health care workers returning from treating Ebola patients in West Africa might not be the best scientific approach, the director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases said Sunday. 
 
 Three states — New York, New Jersey and Illinois — enacted medical quarantines of workers coming home from working in West Africa. And Anthony Fauci said on "Fox News Sunday" there's concern about the quarantine keeping others from volunteering. 
 
 "First principle: Protect American people. Second principle: Make your decision based on the science," he said. 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: Rick Scott implements Ebola monitoring) 
 
 "Guidelines regarding how you handle people from coming back should always be based on the science, and the science tells us that people who are asymptomatic do not transmit," Fauci added. "That doesn't mean we're cavalier about it, but that means there are other steps that you can protect American people based on the scientific evidence that does not necessarily go so far as to possibly have unintended consequences of disincentivizing health care workers. The best way to protect us is to stop the epidemic in Africa, and we need those health care workers." 
 
 (WATCH: Sunday shows in 90 seconds) 
 
 Active and direct monitoring would accomplish the same thing as a quarantine, Fauci said. He made similar remarks on NBC's "Meet the Press," CNN's "State of the Union" and ABC's "This Week." 
 
 "We need to treat them, returning people, with respect, and make sure that they're really heroes," he said on "Meet the Press" when talking about a quarantine of the returning health-care workers. "So the idea that we're being a little bit draconian, there are other ways to protect. There's monitoring, there's direct monitoring, there's active monitoring. We don't necessarily need to do that." 
 
 Read more about: Quarantine, Ebola, Anthony Fauci ||||| Rep. Darrell Issa said on Sunday the public lacks confidence in the Obama administration's ability to handle the Ebola crisis. 
 
 The California Republican, who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said governors of both parties are reacting to an absence of presidential leadership. Illinois, New Jersey and New York recently imposed mandatory 21-day quarantines for health care professionals returning from treating Ebola patients in West Africa. 
 
 But Issa said on CNN's "State of the Union" that mandatory quarantines might not be the best way for states to contain the disease. 
 
 (WATCH: Sunday shows in 90 seconds) 
 
 "Science has told us, if we are to take them at their word, that if someone doesn’t have an elevated temperature or the other later symptoms, that we can rely on them not being contagious," he said. "If that’s true, then immediate isolation of people for 21 days is not the answer. Again, trust matters." 
 
 Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said earlier Sunday that imposing mandatory quarantines might discourage health care professionals from going to West Africa in the first place, where they're most needed to stop the spread of the disease at its source. 
 
 The administration needs to step up and lead, Issa said. But, he said, President Barack Obama's appointment of Ron Klain, a lawyer, to coordinate government response efforts doesn't inspire much confidence. 
 
 "The fact is, I’d much rather he find a four-star general or admiral to coordinate these people who have said things that didn’t turn out to be accurate, who have made mistakes and don’t want to admit them," Issa said. 
 
 Read more about: President Barack Obama, Obama Administration, Darrell Issa, Ron Klain, Ebola, Anthony Fauci
– Chris Christie may have a pretty irate nurse taking the Garden State to task over the execution of his mandatory-quarantine policy toward Ebola, but he's standing by it. "I think this is a policy that will become a national policy sooner rather than later," he told Fox News Sunday today, as per Politico. "It was my conclusion that we needed to do this to protect the public health of the people of New Jersey. We have taken this action, and I have no second thoughts about it." Fellow Republican Darrell Issa, meanwhile, says that New Jersey's quarantine—like those in Illinois and New York—is an attempt to compensate for the White House's lack of leadership on Ebola, but probably not the best course. "Science has told us that if someone doesn’t have an elevated temperature or the other later symptoms, that we can rely on them not being contagious," he said. "If that’s true, then immediate isolation of people for 21 days is not the answer. Again, trust matters." Elsewhere on your Sunday dial: National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci: "Asymptomatic (people) do not transmit. That doesn't mean we're cavalier about it, but that means there are other steps (to avoid the) unintended consequences of disincentivizing health care workers." Per the AP: "The best way to protect us is to stop the epidemic in Africa, and we need those health care workers so we do not want to put them in a position where it makes it very, very uncomfortable US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power: Returning American health care workers need to be "treated like conquering heroes and not stigmatized for the tremendous work that they have done."