Princeton resident and NBC News Chief Medical Editor and Correspondent Dr. Nancy Snyderman, 62, issued an apology Monday via a statement read during the NBC Nightly News broadcast by Anchorman Brian Williams.

“While under voluntary quarantine guidelines, which called for our team to avoid public contact for 21 days, members of our group violated those guidelines and understand that our quarantine is now mandatory until 21 days have passed,” the statement read. “We remain healthy and our temperatures are normal. As a health professional I know that we have no symptoms and pose no risk to the public, but I am deeply sorry for the concerns this episode caused.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), those exposed to the virus may develop symptoms up to 21 days after exposure. The NBC crew’s exposure was considered to be “low risk.”

The voluntary quarantine required Ms. Snyderman and the rest of her team to stay in touch with local health authorities for the remainder of the recommended 21-day period after a camera man they were working with tested positive for the disease and the team returned to the United States from Liberia where they had been reporting about the Ebola outbreak in Monrovia.

The American camera man, Ashoka Mukpo, a 33-year-old photo-journalist from Rhode Island, is being treated at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, where he is reportedly receiving an experimental drug and recovering.

Ms. Snyderman’s Monday night statement was in response to the New Jersey Department of Health’s upping the quarantine from voluntary to mandatory status late Friday after news broke that Ms. Snyderman had been spotted outside a Hopewell restaurant.

The change came after local reporter Krystal Knapp reported the alleged sighting on the online news media outlet, Planet Princeton. Ms. Knapp had received a tip that Ms. Snyderman was sitting in her black Mercedes outside of the restaurant last Thursday afternoon; a man had been seen getting out of the car and going inside the restaurant to pick up a take-out order. Another man had been seen in the back seat of the vehicle.

“Unfortunately, the NBC crew violated this agreement and so the Department of Health today issued a mandatory quarantine order to ensure that the crew will remain confined until Oct. 22,” said Health Department spokesperson Dawn Thomas on Friday.

Of the trip to the restaurant, Ms. Thomas observed, “The NBC crew remains symptom-free, so there is no reason for concern of exposure to the community.”

The voluntary quarantine agreement violation as reported on Planet Princeton was picked up Friday by websites that cover the media industry, including JimRomenesko.com and Mediabistro.

Health Officer’s Report

At Monday night’s meeting of the Mayor and Princeton Council, Health Officer Jeffrey Grosser updated the council on the NBC team and the status of the quarantine.

After describing the disease in some detail and then the situation that had brought Ms. Snyderman and members of her team into self-quarantine in Princeton, he said, “The virus now has Princeton ties. The NBC team violated their agreement with the Princeton Health Department. Currently they are symptom free. Princeton police have been charged with policing the isolation area.”

Mr. Grosser, who became Princeton Health Officer just six months ago, explained that initial testing had determined the NBC team to be at “no risk” for the disease. But, he continued, a second test by the Centers of Disease Control (CDC) had changed that assessment to “low risk,” and the team had been asked to self-monitor for 21 days. “Low risk,” Mr. Grosser explained, means being within three feet of an infected person. The second risk assessment was “erring on the side of caution,” he said. “For low risk exposure it is typical to have monitoring by a public health nurse.”

While expressing the need to support Mr. Grosser’s efforts to protect the community, councillor Heather Howard asked whether the costs of extra hours for the public health nurse might be reimbursed by the state. Mr. Grosser said he would look into it. Jo Butler asked him a hypothetical question about the alleged NBC team’s visit to Hopewell for take-out food: “If prior notice had been given to the health department, would he have approved?” He responded to the effect that this sort of question had come up when the self-monitoring agreement was put in place. “Public places were to be avoided. Food could have been delivered. It wasn’t necessary,” he said.

According to reports on CNN, the Ebola virus has been contracted for the first time by someone inside the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed Sunday that the first known transmission of the disease in the United States had occurred when a nurse at a Dallas Hospital, who had worn protective gear during her “extensive contact” with Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan, tested positive for Ebola. The nurse is reported to be in stable condition. Duncan, the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, died last Wednesday, October 8.

The World Health Organization (WHO) reports more than 8,300 people have contracted Ebola during the current outbreak. Of those, more than 4,000 have died. In spite of these figures, it is said that the disease is “not very contagious,” and “difficult to catch.”

People are at risk if they come into very close contact with the blood, saliva, sweat, feces, semen, vomit, or soiled clothing of an Ebola patient, or if they travel to affected areas in West Africa (Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia) and come into contact with someone who has Ebola.

Symptoms include vomiting, diarrhea, muscle pain, fever, and unexplained bleeding. WHO estimates that some 416 health care workers have contracted Ebola, and at least 233 have died.

Ms. Snyderman joined NBC News as the chief medical editor in September 2006. She has reported on wide-ranging medical topics and has traveled the world extensively, reporting from many of the world’s most troubled areas.