Dr. Nancy Snyderman is apologizing for her actions. The Today show doctor and NBC correspondent spoke to Matt Lauer on Wednesday, Nov. 3, and took accountability for a controversial decision she made.
Snyderman came under fire this past October, when she violated a voluntary Ebola quarantine. The TV personality had been reporting on the health crisis from Liberia, and confined herself in her New Jersey home, as her team did the same.
She had been working with cameraman Ashoka Mukpo, who did contract the deadly disease, but is now healthy after receiving treatment. Snyderman was spotted outside of her home soon after her stateside return, raising eyebrows with what many saw as a risky decision.
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"I'm very sorry for not only scaring my community and the country, but adding to the confusion of terms that I think came as fast and furious as the news about Ebola did," the NBC vet told Lauer on the Today show. "Suddenly we're talking about quarantine, isolation, controlled monitoring, who should be in hospital rooms, who shouldn't be. So, when I came back from Liberia with my team, we had already been taking our temperatures four, five, six times a day, and we knew our risks in our heads, but didn't really appreciate, and frankly, we were not sensitive to, how absolutely frightened Americans were."
Many in the doctor's community and the general public were displeased with Snyderman's choice to step out earlier than expected. Her reputation was questioned as news of the quarantine gained traction, inspiring Snyderman to speak this week.
"I came back, agreed to voluntary quarantine in my home, and then 72 hours later, left my home…" she explained. "It was about breaking a promise and it was also my association with Ashoka Mukpo, who we had hired to be on our team, who now fortunately is well… Good people can make mistakes, and I stepped outside the boundaries of what I promised to do, and what the public expected of me, and for that, I'm sorry."
