Maine nurse defies Ebola quarantine, setting up showdown with state

A Maine nurse defied an Ebola quarantine order on Thursday, following through with a promise to violate state-imposed restrictions she has characterized as unscientific. The move — conveyed by means of a bike ride with her boyfriend — brings to a head a showdown over how health care professionals returning from West Africa are treated.

Police officers followed Kaci Hickox, 33, as she left her home for the journey but are powerless to detain her without first obtaining a court order signed by a judge.

State officials have indicated that they will seek such an order to restrict the 33-year-old nurse to her home for the remainder of a 21-day incubation period for the killer disease, which for her ends on Nov. 10.

By daring to leave her house, Hickox offered a challenge to authorities to go to court to have her confined against her will, as they threatened to do for days.

But by late Thursday afternoon, the legal showdown had yet to take place.

Hickox, who volunteered in Sierra Leone with Doctors Without Borders, contends that there is no need for her to be quarantined. She has tested negative for Ebola and is showing no symptoms. On Wednesday she stepped outside her home to speak to reporters, shaking one by the hand.

Hickox’s plight underscores how the U.S. is struggling to balance protections against the virus’ spread with upholding civil rights.

She previously blasted New Jersey Gov. 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.

She made a brief foray out of her house on Wednesday, and police watched from across the street but did not intervene.

"I'm not willing to stand here and let my civil rights be violated when it's not science-based," Hickox told reporters before returning inside.

Earlier she warned authorities that if restrictions were not lifted by Thursday morning, she would go to court to file a complaint.

Her lawyer, Steven Hyman, told Reuters that there is no basis for officials to arrest or detain her. "Such action would be illegal and unconstitutional, and we would seek to protect Kaci’s rights as an American citizen under the Constitution. There is no medical risk, and we have to deal with fact and not hysteria," he said.

Hickox's defiance has not sat well with the state’s Republican governor, Paul LePage, who said he would seek legal authority to keep her isolated at home until Nov. 10.

"While we certainly respect the rights of one individual, we must be vigilant in protecting 1.3 million Mainers, as well as anyone who visits our great state," he said in a statement.

At a White House event Wednesday, President Barack Obama scolded politicians who have sought quarantines or strict travel bans, although he did not mention anyone by name.

"When I hear people talking about American leadership and then are promoting policies that would avoid leadership and have us running in the opposite direction and hiding under the covers, it makes me a little frustrated," he said.

As the quarantine battle plays out in public, U.S. Ebola czar Ron Klain was scheduled to visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta on Thursday.

His trip comes amid growing concern that the response by some in the U.S. to Ebola has been over the top. Even people who did not treat Ebola patients but traveled to West Africa are facing restrictions.

In Connecticut, a school superintendent defended the decision to keep a 7-year-old girl out of class for three weeks over concerns that she might have contracted Ebola while at a wedding in Nigeria. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared Nigeria Ebola-free days after the girl's trip.

Elsewhere in West Africa, the virus continues to kill, with the death toll close to 5,000. But Liberia, the country worst hit by epidemic, may be seeing a decline in the spread of the virus, the WHO said on Wednesday.

In the U.S., the hospitals' preparedness for dealing with outbreaks has been questioned. On Thursday, National Nurses United (NNU) — the country’s largest union of registered nurses — announced that members planned to hold demonstrations across the country on Nov. 12 calling for the government to establish better safety protocols for hospitals caring for Ebola patients.

“With the refusal of hospitals across the country to take seriously the need to establish the highest safety precautions for when an Ebola patient walks in the door and the failure of our elected leaders in Washington to compel them to do so, America’s nurses say they have to make their voices heard a little louder,” NNU Executive Director RoseAnn DeMoro said in a release.

To date, some U.S. states have imposed automatic 21-day quarantines on doctors and nurses returning from treating Ebola patients in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Many Republicans, including Christie, have accused the Obama administration of doing too little to protect Americans from Ebola.

California, the most populous U.S. state, announced on Wednesday that people returning from Ebola-affected countries who have had contact with infected patients will be quarantined for 21 days. The policy offers a degree of flexibility, with local health officials allowed to "establish limitations of quarantine on a case-by-case basis."

A Stanford University physician, Colin Bucks, who late last week returned to the San Francisco Bay Area after treating Ebola patients in West Africa, was placed under a modified quarantine under the new rules on Wednesday, the San Mateo County Health System said.

The county told Bucks to stay away from work and avoid close contact with others for 21 days. He may engage in limited activity outside his home, such as jogging alone, the county said.

States have rushed new policies into place without figuring out the finer details, critics say.

“They’re making it up almost by the hour,” said Stephen Morrison, an expert in global health policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “This is a collision between the political and the public health realms.”

Al Jazeera and wire services