Ebola nurse takes bike ride
A US nurse who vowed to defy a quarantine order for health care workers who have treated Ebola patients has left her home again.
Kaci Hickox, who stepped outside briefly to meet reporters last night, followed through with her vow by again leaving her home in Maine, this time going for a bike ride with her boyfriend.
Police in the town of Fort Kent monitored her but could not detain her without a court order signed by a judge.
Ms Hickox says there is no need for quarantine because she is showing no symptoms.
State officials are going to court in an effort to detain her for the remainder of the 21-day incubation period for Ebola that ends on November 10.
Ms Hickox, who treated Ebola patients in west Africa, says she has abided by the state’s voluntary quarantine by having no contact with people on Tuesday and yesterday.
“I remain appalled by these home quarantine policies that have been forced upon me even though I am in perfectly good health,” she said.
Her lawyer Norman Siegel said she is not willing to co-operate further unless the state lifts “all or most of the restrictions”, but state officials continue to assert that she should remain in isolation until November 10.
A judge would have to grant the state’s request in what could serve as a test of the legality of state quarantines during the Ebola scare.
Guidelines recommend monitoring for health care workers like Ms Hickox who have come into contact with Ebola patients, but some states, including Maine, are going above and beyond them.
Ms Hickox, who volunteered in Sierra Leone with Doctors Without Borders, was the first person forced into New Jersey’s mandatory quarantine for people arriving at Newark Liberty Airport from three west African countries.
She spent the weekend in a tent in New Jersey before travelling to the home of her boyfriend, a nursing student at the University of Maine at Fort Kent.
“I am not going to sit around and be bullied by politicians and forced to stay in my home when I am not a risk to the American public,” she said.
Maine Governor Paul LePage, who cancelled campaign events to keep tabs on the situation, commended all health care workers who have volunteered in Africa to treat Ebola patients, but he said the state must be “vigilant” to protect others.
State law allows a judge to grant temporary custody of someone if health officials demonstrate “a clear and immediate public health threat”.
