Jane Lerner, Elizabeth Ganga and Linda Lombroso

Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino raised the possibility in a campaign radio appearance Wednesday that the Ebola virus had reached the New York City suburbs but sought to tamp down the alarm a few hours later.

There is no Ebola case in Westchester, though there was a question about a man who appeared at a Westchester hospital, county officials said Wednesday.

Appearing on New York Post Albany correspondent Fred Dicker's radio show on WGDJ-AM TALK 1300, Astorino, the Republican candidate for governor, spoke about a local patient who had sparked concern.

"I found out late last night that there is a patient at one of our hospitals in Westchester that was from western Africa. He has not been there recently but he has been in contact with people who were. He is being treated," Astorino said in response to a question from Dicker.

"They cannot tell if it's Ebola," Astorino added. "They do not believe that it is; they believe that it's low-risk."

Astorino's comment about the case came a day after he gave a campaign speech calling for the FAA to halt flights to New York-area airports from West Africa, citing the Ebola outbreak. He used the radio interview to press his point that flights should be stopped.

As media outlets scrambled to determine just how serious the matter might be, Westchester health officials hastily called a midday news conference at the county office building to give further details.

Astorino said at the news conference that a Westchester resident was put into isolation about 9 p.m. Tuesday at an unspecified local hospital because he had contact with someone who traveled to West Africa. The patient was not tested for Ebola, and there are no plans to do so.

"In this case this person did not travel to one of the affected countries," Astorino said.

While the county Health Department has received 11 inquiries about possible Ebola symptoms since August, none of the inquiries has resulted in patients being tested because none had risk factors or indications for testing, according to deputy health commissioner Dr. Ada Huang, a specialist in infectious diseases.

Astorino, presiding from the podium in the county executive suite's press briefing room, then took the occasion to answer unrelated campaign questions before ending the news conference.

Hospitals around Westchester County have been preparing for patients with potential Ebola symptoms. They said Wednesday they had no patients whose symptoms were of concern.

Bill O'Reilly, a campaign spokesman for Astorino, said the patient in question had been admitted to Phelps Memorial Hospital Center in Sleepy Hollow. Phelps spokeswoman Mary Sernatinger, however, said in a statement Wednesday: "There are no patients at Phelps with the symptoms of or who meet the clinical criteria for testing for Ebola."

No patients are in isolation, she added.

Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at New York University, said Astorino's hint that there was an important Ebola-related development in Westchester was irresponsible.

"What he did does not contribute one whit to effectively responding to the Ebola threat in the U.S.," he said. "We expect a leader to provide accurate information — not to jump at the first bit of gossip or rumor-mongering."

O'Reilly noted it was Dicker who raised the issue in the radio appearance and Astorino who sought to quell any panic through the news conference.

"You have a local guy with a fever and a Liberia connection," O'Reilly said. "You have to address it."

Astorino's comments came on the same day the the U.S. government announced it will begin taking the temperatures of travelers from West Africa arriving at five U.S. airports — two of them in the region — in response to the Ebola epidemic.

President Barack Obama said the new efforts would provide yet another tier of protection at key U.S. points of entry.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the additional layer of screening would begin at John F. Kennedy International Airport and Newark Liberty, Washington Dulles, Chicago and Atlanta airports. He said the new steps would begin Saturday at JFK.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.