Joanne Calvi took a trip to New York City Monday, but it was not to see Times Square or watch a game at Madison Square Garden.
Calvi, a public health nurse and director of the Rutland District office of the state Health Department, and the Rutland County sheriff, were the two Vermont officials sent to intercept Peter Italia as he returned from West Africa, a region of the world stricken by the deadly Ebola virus.
In a Thursday interview, Calvi recounted her experience and talked about her job monitoring Italia for the remainder of his 21-day voluntary quarantine.
Other state officials alerted Calvi late last week that Peter Italia was traveling in Africa and might need to be monitored under quarantine if he returned to Vermont, she said.
Italia has said, via Facebook posts and emails to the Rutland mayor, that he went to Africa in late September to aid victims of Ebola and monitor the crisis. He calls himself a doctor although he is not registered in Vermont.
Meanwhile, Calvi and other state health officials for the past two weeks have been preparing protocol in the event that someone potentially exposed to Ebola came to Vermont, she said.
“This just happened sooner,” she said.
Calvi and Sheriff Stephen Benard drove to New York City Monday morning in an unmarked sheriff’s car to meet the 2:05 p.m. plane from Brussels, where Italia had connected after leaving Guinea.
The pair met New York Port Authority officials who escorted them into the customs area of the airport, she said, where they met Italia after members of the Department of Homeland Security and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention screened him.
Normally, the district health office’s job during a public health emergency is to educate the public about safety protocols and monitor someone placed under quarantine, she said. The decision to retrieve Italia from the airport was made based on case-specific circumstances and by officials higher up than her, she said.
Calvi was not worried about contracting the virus and did not wear special clothing or equipment, she said. Italia did not presented symptoms when screened by the CDC, she said.
She was worried, however, whether Italia would agree to return to Vermont with her and the sheriff. Italia agreed immediately.
“All we had to do was leave,” she said.
On the five-hour trip home, Italia recounted his trip to Guinea. According to emails and Facebook posts by Italia, he visited remote villages alone when he was denied by aid organizations he asked to join.
“He really is a very caring person. He was there just trying to understand what was happening,” Calvi said.
Italia is the author of a book titled “Quantum Medicine,” described as containing “true stories about real hospital cases in which Dr. Italia has used time travel and other methods.”
His biography, posted on the ebook publishing website Smashwords, says he attended Champlain College and graduated from the Universidad Eugenio María de Hostos school of medicine in the Dominican Republic.
Italia cares about victims of the epidemic and feels Americans do not take it seriously, she said. Calvi said Italia appears mentally stable.
“I saw him kind of as an ally of the same thing we’re really trying to do,” she said.
Now Calvi and a team of public health nurses monitor Italia twice a day at his undisclosed, guarded location, she said.
They ask him by phone whether he as a high temperature before visiting, she said. If not, they arrive and monitor him for symptoms. Nurses do not near to wear protective gear, she said.
“He has been the nicest person and very cooperative,” she said.
