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 The saga of nurse Kaci Hickox illustrates how U.S. states are
struggling to protect against the virus without resorting to
overzealous and useless precautions or violating civil rights.
Hickox, 33, tested negative for Ebola after returning from treating
patients in West Africa. She previously blasted 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.
"I truly believe this policy is not scientifically nor
constitutionally just, and so I am not going to sit around and be
bullied around by politicians and be forced to stay in my home when
I am not a risk to the American public," Hickox, speaking from her
home in the small Maine town of Fort Kent along the Canadian border,
told NBC's "Today" program.
"If the restrictions placed on me by the state of Maine are not
lifted by Thursday morning, I will go to court to fight for my
freedom," Hickox added.
Hickox's defiance did not sit well with 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," LePage said in a statement.
At a White House event, President Barack Obama scolded politicians
who have sought quarantines or strict travel bans for caving into
fears, 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," Obama said.
As quarantines are debated by politicians, U.S. Ebola czar Ron Klain
will visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
headquarters in Atlanta on Thursday.
Even people who did not treat Ebola patients but traveled to West
Africa are facing restrictions.
A Connecticut school superintendent defended the decision to keep a
7-year-old girl out of class for three weeks over concerns the girl
might have contracted Ebola while at a wedding in Nigeria. The World
Health Organization declared Nigeria Ebola-free days after the
girl's trip.
Hickox worked with the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders in
Sierra Leone, one of the three nations at the heart of an outbreak
that has killed about 5,000 people in West Africa. Liberia, the
country worst-hit by the epidemic, may be seeing a decline in the
spread of the virus, the World Health Organization said on
Wednesday.
In several media interviews, Hickox said she was in good health and
had not had any symptoms of the virus that would indicate she had
become contagious. Hickox said she had been monitoring her condition
and taking her temperature twice a day.
'ILLEGAL AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL'
Her lawyer, Steven Hyman, told Reuters that Maine has no basis 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.
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.
Hickox said her last contact with an Ebola patient was on Oct. 21.
The maximum incubation period for Ebola is 21 days.
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. Republicans including Christie
have accused Obama's administration of doing too little to protect
Americans from Ebola.
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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 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 Colin Bucks to stay away from work and close contact
with others for 21 days. He may engage in limited activity outside
of his home, such as jogging alone, the county said.
States have rushed new policies into place without figuring out the
finer details.
“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.”
Public health experts, the United Nations and medical charities -
and Obama - oppose such steps as scientifically unjustified. They
say such policies may discourage badly needed American doctors and
nurses from volunteering to help.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo proposed providing financial
incentives to encourage healthcare workers to volunteer in West
Africa.
"We're looking at putting together a package analogous to military
reservists who when they get called on duty: They still get pay,
they still get benefits and they can't be hurt in their current
job," he said. "I think we can get healthcare people to West Africa
and still protect the public health here."
Also on Wednesday, another American nurse who returned home from
working with Ebola patients in Sierra Leone agreed to quarantine
herself at home in Texas with twice-daily monitoring by state health
officials for 21 days, officials said. The nurse, who was not
identified, is asymptomatic.
Setting himself apart from his counterparts in Maine and New Jersey,
Texas Governor Rick Perry, a possible 2016 Republican U.S.
presidential candidate along with Christie, telephoned the nurse,
calling her a hero.
Four people have been diagnosed with Ebola in the United States,
with one death, a Liberian man who flew to Texas. Two of his nurses
were infected, but both have recovered and are virus-free. The only
patient now being treated for Ebola in the United States is a New
York doctor, Craig Spencer, who was diagnosed last Thursday after
treating Ebola patients in Guinea.
(Additional reporting by Nelson Acosta in Havana, Jon Herskovitz in
Texas, Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, N.C., Frank McGurty in New
York and David Alexander, Steve Holland, Roberta Rampton in
Washington, Jonathan Allen in New York and Sharon Bernstein in
Sacramento, Calif.; Writing by Will Dunham; Editing by Jonathan
Oatis, Grant McCool, Lisa Shumaker and Cynthia Osterman)
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