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Thursday, 30 October 2014

Nurse Defies Ebola Quarantine With Bike Ride


A US nurse recently returned from West Africa has defied quarantine by going on a bike ride with her boyfriend.

Kaci Hickox, who gave a statement to reporters on Wednesday night, followed through on her threat to go out and about.
Police followed the couple but were unable to stop them without a court order signed by a judge.
Ms Hickox, 33, insists there is no need for confinement because she has shown no symptoms and has twice tested negative for Ebola.
She had vowed to go to court over attempts to keep her in seclusion, but Maine's governor said officials would pursue legal authority to do just that.
State officials say Ms Hickox should be detained for the remainder of the 21-day incubation period for Ebola that ends on 10 November.

Ms Hickox was the first person forced into New Jersey's mandatory quarantine after arriving at Newark airport on Friday following her work in Sierra Leone for Doctors Without Borders.
She was released on Monday from a weekend of seclusion in a tent at a hospital and taken to Maine under supervised conditions.
Police have been monitoring her movements at the Fort Kent property of her boyfriend, a nursing student, where she has been staying.
Speaking outside the property on Wednesday night, when she shook someone's hand, Ms Hickox said: "I'm completely healthy and symptom-free.
"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."
Ms Hickox said the policies are "not scientifically or constitutionally just".
But Maine officials were not backtracking.
"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,” said the governor, Paul LePage.
State law allows a judge to grant temporary custody of someone if health officials demonstrate "a clear and immediate public health threat".
But Maine health officials could have a tough time convincing a judge that she poses a threat, experts said.
For the second time in as many days on Wednesday, President Barack Obama defended medical volunteers who brave the frontline in the fight against Ebola.
"We need to call them what they are - American heroes," he said in an event at the White House.
He spoke as California became the latest US state to introduce a 21-day quarantine for those exposed to Ebola, though its policy is seen as less sweeping than those in New York, New Jersey and Maine.

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