Defying State-Ordered Quarantine, Nurse Takes 'Beautiful' Bike Ride – coinkia

Defying State-Ordered Quarantine, Nurse Takes 'Beautiful' Bike Ride

Post author:mobanmarket
Post published:October 13, 2020
Post category:Uncategorized

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Defying a state-ordered quarantine on Thursday morning, nurse Kaci Hickox left her home in the rural town of Fort Kent, Maine to go for a bike ride with her partner, Ted Wilbur. The two were not stopped, but were followed on their ride by a state trooper patrol car.

“It’s a beautiful day for a bike ride,” Hickox said, according to the local Bangor Daily News, as she rode along the road.

The BDN reports:

The national debate about how local government agencies should responsibly handle returning healthcare workers who have treated Ebola patients in West Africa is coming to a head in a rural section of Maine where nurse Kaci Hickox has said she and her lawyers are ready to challenge a forced quarantine order on behalf of “other aid workers coming back every day.”

If the state files legal action against her, she said, the civil rights attorney who has taken up her case is ready to fight those restrictions in court. Though she had said Wednesday she would attempt to leave her house on Thursday to test the state’s imposed restriction, Hickox said early Thursday morning that she’s not yet decided how she’ll proceed.

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“The ball is in the state’s court,” she said of possible litigation. “My lawyers and I will discuss that and then decide.”

Hickox, who first made news when the state of New Jersey put her in forced isolation at a Newark hospital when she returned from Sierra Leone last week, emerged from her home in Fort Kent, Maine early Thursday morning and told reporters that her treatment in her home state has been little better and characterized the rhetoric of state officials, including Gov. Paul LePage, as misguided.

“We have been in negotiations all day with the state of Maine and tried to resolve this amicably, but they are not allowing me to leave my house and interact with the public even though I am completely healthy and symptom free,” Hickox told reporters from her front steps. “I am frustrated by this fact, and I have been told that it is the Attorney General’s intention to file legal action against me. And if this does occur, I will challenge the legal actions.”

The international aid group Doctor’s Without Border, with whom Hickox worked while in Sierra Leone, released a statement on Thursday condemning the way the nurse has been treated and reiterating its stance that enforcing quarantines in situations such as this are “not based upon established medical science” and are not appropriate. Quarantines like this will only undermine efforts to curb the epidemic at its source in West Africa, the group said.

“Kaci Hickox has carried out important, lifesaving work for MSF in a number of countries in recent years,” the group stated, “and we are proud to have her as a member of our organization. MSF respects Kaci’s right as a private citizen to challenge excessive restrictions being placed upon her.”

NBC News video:

According to the Bangor Daily News in Maine:

And Reuters adds:

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