Kaci Hickox spoke with CNN’s, Anderson Cooper this week about moving away from Maine. The Doctors Without Borders nurse returned from helping patients in Sierra Lyon to a 21 day quarantine, which she vehemently fought against. Officials from the state of Maine quarantined the health worker for 21 day period. The time it takes for the Ebola virus to incubate.
In a recent update Hickox told Anderson Cooper,
“The biggest reason that I fought is because I, you know, I felt so much fear and confusion, and I imagined what my fellow aid workers were going to feel if they came back to the same situation – and the more I thought about the fact that these policies are being made by politicians, really not the experts in the field – the more I felt like I had no choice but to fight back.”
A judge subsequently allowed the nurse to report through direct ‘self-monitoring’ and notify the CDC of any travel plans. Kaci and her husband Wilber (also a nursing student) announced that they are planning to move after day 21, when their monitoring ends. “We are going to southern Maine and will decide what’s next from there.”
Her husband was enrolled as a nursing student at the University of Maine. However, for a short period the University did not allow him to attend classes, even though he exhibited no symptoms of Ebola. He has since withdrawn from the University.
Officials from the University of Maine released this statement,
“We have put forth a tremendous amount of work to educate people about the threats of the bullet, but we still had concerns about the safety and security and we were working with law-enforcement health officials. Unfortunately we weren’t able to accommodate Ted in a manner he was satisfied with,” said Dan Demerrit.
