NBC’s Dr. Nancy Snyderman has apologized for breaking quarantine after a photojournalist she was working with was diagnosed with Ebola during their coverage in Liberia.
The chief medical editor gave her first interview after being isolated for 21 days and in a sit down with Matt Lauer on the Today Show on Wednesday.
"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," she said.
She said during their trip to cover the Ebola outbreak, they were monitoring themselves several times a day but admits she didn’t take her voluntary quarantine seriously enough upon arriving home to the U.S.
"I wear two hats — I have my doctor hat and I have my journalist hat, and when the science and the messaging sometimes collide, and you leave the optics, in this case a hot zone and come back to the United States, good people can make mistakes," she said. "I stepped outside the boundaries of what I promised to do and what the public expected of me, and for that I’m sorry."
She returned home at the height of the U.S.’ panic over contracting Ebola, after a few nurses were diagnosed with the often deadly disease.
Last month marked the end of the daily monitoring period for those people who had contact with Ebola patients in Dallas, Texas.
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