Following the Ebola diagnosis of New York health worker Dr. Craig Spencer, New York and New Jersey Governors Andrew Cuomo and Chris Christie instituted a mandatory 21-day quarantine on Friday for all returning health workers who had made contact with Ebola patients in West Africa. On Sunday, after mounting pressure from the White House to reverse that policy decision, both governors clarified their policies.

Cuomo decided to allow asymptomatic health workers to be quarantined in their homes, with compensation from the state for any income lost. Christie, on the other hand, mostly stood by his decision, saying that N.J. residents were allowed to be quarantined in their homes — a sneaky move, considering that Kaci Hickock, a Doctors Without Borders nurse who landed in Newark Airport, and who subsequently wrote an op-ed in the Dallas Morning News criticizing her treatment upon arrival, lives in Maine.

Though it may seem smart to quarantine health workers returning from West Africa, the fact is that the disease hasn’t spread beyond the hospital-health worker setting. Nina Pham, Amber Joy Vinson, and Dr. Spencer all admitted themselves into hospitals upon feeling the first signs of illness (a slight fever). Christie may believe (in the video below) that “we can’t count on a voluntary system,” but there probably isn’t anyone better at noticing symptoms of the virus and taking precautions than the people dealing with it firsthand. Not one person who made contact with these health workers has been diagnosed with the virus yet.

If anything, implementing a mandatory quarantine can only make things worse. As Hickock wrote, “I am scared about how health care workers will be treated at airports when they declare that they have been fighting Ebola in West Africa.” Knowing that they’re coming home to a “frenzy of disorganization, fear, and, most frightening, quarantine,” many health workers may not want to help in the fight against Ebola in the first place. And that will only worsen our chances of ending the outbreak.