The federal government has laid out, in unusual operational detail, what state, tribal, local, and territorial health departments are expected to do when someone arrives in their jurisdiction from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, or South Sudan. The guidance assigns health departments an initial exposure assessment, a health education requirement, symptom monitoring across 21 days, and a coordination role when a traveler develops symptoms.
The intensity of that monitoring now depends almost entirely on which country a traveler came from. For anyone who was in, or transited through, an airport in DRC, the current recommendation is twice-daily in-person monitoring by the health department, daily self-monitoring with temperature measurement, staying home and avoiding others, and limiting travel to essential purposes by noncommercial means. Travelers from Uganda or South Sudan face a far lighter regime.
