Dr. Craig Spencer, the first to be diagnosed with Ebola in New York City, went bowling, rode the subway and took a cab before he tested positive for the virus late Thursday, officials said.
Spencer, a Doctors Without Borders member, arrived in the U.S. on Oct. 17 after treating Ebola patients in Guinea, one of three West African countries at the center of the epidemic.
Since returning to his Manhattan apartment he went jogging, visited the city's High Line park and took a taxi to a bowling alley in Brooklyn on Wednesday night, according to a rough outline of the doctor's travels, the Associated Press reported.
The 33-year-old doctor also rode the 1, A and L subway lines, just like millions of other New Yorkers do every day in the nation's most populous city. His last subway ride was a few hours before he was tested for Ebola at Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital, according to My Fox New York.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and health officials have tried to calm the fear that erupted across the city after Spencer was quarantined and diagnosed at Bellevue, the city's designated Ebola treatment center.
"We want to state at the outset that New Yorkers have no reason to be alarmed," de Blasio said Thursday, the AP reported. "New Yorkers who have not been exposed are not at all at risk."
Cuomo said there is no reason for locals to stop riding the subway out of fear of contracting Ebola, which health officials repeatedly say is spread through contact with bodily fluids including vomit, blood or saliva, and not through the air. Also, infection occurs when someone is already showing symptoms.
The doctor reportedly did not show symptoms, including fever and diarrhea, until Thursday morning.
"He was exposed to four people," Cuomo said according to My Fox New York. "His fiancé, a cab driver and two friends he went bowling with."
Those two friends and the patient's fiancé are now in quarantine at Bellevue.
But the reassurances haven't stopped some New Yorkers from letting anxiety over Ebola sink in. The Gutter bowling alley in Brooklyn that Spencer visited closed its doors, the AP reported. Some commuters were seen lathering on hand sanitizer before boarding the subway. Others were even thinking about moving out of the city.
"If the outbreaks get any more common, I'll be moving out of the city," T.J. DeMaso, a construction worker who rides the subway, told the news agency. "You could catch it and not even know it. You could bring it home to your kids. That's not a chance I want to take."
