A nurse who treated Ebola patients in Sierra Leone but has tested negative for the virus ventured out of her home in Maine, US, and took a bike ride yesterday, defying a quarantine order and setting up a legal collision with state authorities.
Attorneys for Kaci Hickox, 33, said they had not yet been served with a court order to enforce a 21-day quarantine – matching the virus’s maximum incubation period – but remained prepared to fight such an order if necessary.
Since there’s no court order, she can be out in public
Hickox left her home in the small Maine town of Fort Kent, along the Canadian border, and television news images showed her taking a morning bicycle ride with her boyfriend. Hickox has given the state a deadline till yesterday to lift an order that she remain at home until November 10, or she will go to court.
“It’s a beautiful day for a bike ride,” said Hickox, dressed in bike gear including a helmet as she headed out for a five-kilometre ride while police stationed outside her house stood by without trying to stop her, according to local media.
Maine Governor Paul LePage, a Republican locked in a tough re-election battle, said he is seeking legal authority to keep Hickox isolated at home.
Norman Siegel, one of Hickox’s lawyers, defended her decision to go for a bike ride as a public statement but noted that she avoided the centre of town so as not to “freak people out.”
“Since there’s no court order, she can be out in public,” Siegel said. “Even if people disagree with her position, I would hope they respect the fact that she’s taking into account the fear, which is based on misinformation about the way the disease is transmitted.”
Medical professionals say Ebola is difficult to catch and is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids from an infected person and is not transmitted by asymptomatic people. Ebola is not airborne.
Siegel also criticised LePage for stoking fear of Ebola rather than using his office to educate the public about the disease.
“People tell me politics isn’t involved in this?” Siegel said. “Give me a break.”
Concern about Ebola is high in the US even though there is only one person in the country currently being treated for the virus, a New York doctor who cared for patients in West Africa. But with elections next Tuesday, Republicans aiming to take full control of the US Congress have made criticism of Obama’s response to Ebola – they call it inept and too weak – a part of their campaign message.