US nurse defies Ebola quarantine order and goes for bike ride

A nurse in Maine, vowing not to be bullied by politicians and threatening to sue the New England state over an Ebola quarantine she calls scientifically unsound, defied the order and left her home for a bike ride today, according to television images.

Kaci Hickox left her home in the small northern Maine town of Fort Kent to take a morning bicycle ride with her boyfriend, MSNBC and other networks reported.

Ms Hickox, who tested negative for the virus after returning from treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone, said that she plans to take the issue to court if Maine did not lift the quarantine by today.

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 continued to assert that she should remain in isolation until November 10th, the end of the 21-day incubation period for Ebola.

A judge would have to grant the state’s request in what could serve as a test as to the legality of state quarantines during the Ebola scare.

Until an order is signed by a judge, state police will monitor Ms Hickox’s movement and interactions if she leaves her home, Ms Mayhew said.

The 33-year-old nurse‘s confrontation with state officials in Maine - and New Jersey - highlights how US states are struggling to protect their citizens from Ebola without resorting to overzealous, useless precautions or violating civil rights.

Ms Hickox previously criticised New Jersey Governor Chris Christie after she was taken from Newark‘s airport and put in quarantine in a tent before being driven to Maine to spend the rest of her 21-day quarantine at her home. Twenty-one days is the maximum incubation period for Ebola.

Maine Republican Governor Paul LePage, who is in a tough re-election battle, said he would seek legal authority to keep her isolated at home until November 10th.

Ebola, which is spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person, has killed thousands of people in Africa, but only four people have been diagnosed with it in the US.

People cannot be infected just by being near someone who is sick, and people are not contagious unless they are ill, health officials say.

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 (MSF), was the first person forced into New Jersey’s mandatory quarantine for people arriving at the Newark 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.

State law allows a judge to grant temporary custody of someone if health officials demonstrate “a clear and immediate public health threat”.

The disease has killed about 5,000 people, all but a few of them in three impoverished West African countries: Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.

Wire Services