Court order issued for "FORCED" quarantine

Bike-riding nurse defies Ebola quarantine, on collision course with governor

http://news.yahoo.com/maine-nurse-fights-ebola-quarantine-says-not-bullied-004050831.html

Reuters
By Steve Holland
16 hours ago








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By Steve Holland









CAPE ELIZABETH Maine (Reuters) - A nurse who treated Ebola patients in Sierra Leone but has tested negative for the virus went for a bike ride on Thursday, defying Maine's order that she be quarantined in her home and setting up a legal collision with Governor Paul LePage.

Attorneys for Kaci Hickox, 33, said they had not yet been served with a court order to enforce the 21-day quarantine - matching the virus's maximum incubation period - but remained prepared to fight such an order if necessary.

The quarantine showdown between Hickox and Maine has become the focal point of a struggle between several U.S. states opting for stringent measures to guard against Ebola and a federal government wary of discouraging potential medical volunteers.

Mandatory quarantines ordered by some U.S. states on doctors and nurses returning from West Africa's Ebola outbreak are creating a "chilling effect" on Doctors Without Borders operations there, the humanitarian group said on Thursday.

LePage's office said negotiations with Hickox, who worked with Doctors Without Borders in Sierra Leone, "have failed despite repeated efforts by state officials" and that he would "exercise the full extent of his authority allowable by law."

Hickox left her home in the small Maine town of Fort Kent, along the Canadian border, and television news images showed her taking a morning bicycle ride with her boyfriend, Ted Wilbur. Hickox has given the New England state a deadline of Thursday to lift an order that she remain at home until Nov. 10, or she will go to court.

“It’s a beautiful day for a bike ride,” said Hickox, wearing a helmet and other bike gear as she headed out for her 3-mile (5-km) ride while police stationed outside her house stood by without trying to stop her, according to local media.

LePage's office said he was open to an arrangement in which she could go for walks, runs or bike rides but not go into public places or come within 3 feet (1 meter) of other people.

“I was ready and willing - and remain ready and willing - to reasonably address the needs of healthcare workers meeting guidelines to assure the public health is protected,” said LePage, a Republican locked in a tough three-way re-election battle.

President Barack Obama, who has criticized mandatory quarantine policies imposed by some states for returning medical workers like Hickox, flew to Maine on Thursday to campaign in the town of Cape Elizabeth for Democratic candidates, including Mike Michaud, who is trying to unseat LePage in Tuesday's midterm elections.

Asked for comment on Hickox's situation, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Maine that U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials have been in regular touch with the health authorities in the state.

"Ultimately, it is their decision," said Earnest, adding that Obama had no plans to see Hickox while in Maine. Cape Elizabeth is at the opposite end of the state, on its southeastern coast.

One of Hickox's attorneys, Norman Siegel, defended his client's decision to go for a bike ride but noted that she avoided the center of town so as not to “freak people out.”

“Since there’s no court order, she can be out in public,” Siegel said. “Even if people disagree with her position, I would hope they respect the fact that she’s taking into account the fear, which is based on misinformation about the way the disease is transmitted.”

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.

U.S. concern about the disease is high even though there is only one person in the country currently being treated for it, a New York doctor, Craig Spencer, who cared for patients in West Africa. Spencer, 33, remains in serious but stable condition, New York's Bellevue Hospital said on Thursday.

Hickox tested negative for Ebola after returning from Sierra Leone, one of the three impoverished countries at the heart of the outbreak that has killed about 5,000 people there.

She previously blasted New Jersey Governor Chris Christie after she was taken from Newark's airport and put in isolation in a tent before being driven to Maine to spend the rest of her 21-day quarantine at home.

Such treatment of returning medics is affecting those still in West Africa, said Sophie Delaunay, executive director of Doctors Without Borders.

"There is rising anxiety and confusion among MSF staff members in the field over what they may face when they return home upon completion of their assignments in West Africa," said Delaunay in a statement emailed to Reuters. Doctors Without Borders is also known by its French name, Médecins Sans Frontières, or MSF.

With elections coming Tuesday, Republicans aiming to take full control of the U.S. Congress have made criticism of Obama's response to Ebola - which they call inept and too weak - a part of their campaign message.

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. Obama and other critics say such steps may discourage American doctors and nurses who are desperately needed there from volunteering.

New York City and state officials on Thursday announced a program to encourage healthcare professionals to work in West Africa, an effort to deflect criticism of the state's mandatory quarantine.

The program will provide financial incentives and employment protections similar to the benefits and rights provided to military reservists, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said jointly.

(Additional reporting by Joseph Ax, Scott Malone, Jeff Mason, Brendan O'Brien, Ellen Wulfhorst, Susan Heavey and Roberta Rampton; Writing by Will Dunham and Bill Rigby; Editing by Jonathan Oatis, Grant McCool and Lisa Shumaker)

This thing is getting comical. Not only is hickox paying 3k - 5k for her legal defense (possibly more), but she will soon be in jail before this is over.  95% chance the judge will award the order, and a very good likelihood she will defy it and be arrested - and end up in jail. Watch.   Soon the November 10 quarantine date will come, and she will be stuck with huge legal bills and legal problems.    The hero syndrome is going to be costly, and it should almost be treated like a disease itself.    

If anyone is bankrolling her, it's the MSF directors/heroes.   They're all for this and behind it 100%.  They posted it on their own website that they're against quarantining returning workers.  It's very telling for them to do that.  This problem is a lot bigger that just hickox.  This whole organization is full of wacko missionaries.  

The Chinese just gave them another 42 million.

When/if this thing ends, for God sakes get them the hell out of there for good.  There is no reason why this wasn't contained early on like it has been since 1976.    Maybe the heroes love the donations and consider it a gift from God. 

If they want to help Africa so bad, they should fight the corruption and child rape instead of helping the bad guys so much.  They're doing the opposite of God's work as they think.

Oh My Gosh!  Just stay in your house 11 more days & then you will never have to hear from us again lady!!!!!!!  Good Grief!

I think she should have to finish the quarantine in jail. Then she will really understand what it means to have her civil liberties squashed. And she will still have all those fees to deal with .

I sort of hope she comes down with Ebola just to serve a point to the validity of quarantine. If she doesn't get it then others will have more of an argument to avoid quarantine, but if she comes down with it in the middle of her 21 days, and she's been out and about, then most people will get behind the quarantine idea. Then she could also be sued for wasting so much public money.

Hickox has some big bucks.  Or MSF is behind this whole thing and funding it.  MSF is fairly sneaky and borderline corrupt.

Hickox attorney: 

Norman Siegel (born 1943) was the director of the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), New York's leading civil rights organization, under the umbrella of the nationwide American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Siegel served as director from 1985 until 2000.^[1]

iegel attended Brooklyn College and NYU Law School with Rudy Giuliani, who later became mayor of New York City and NYCLU's frequent courtroom opponent.

Since ending his work at the NYCLU, Siegel entered private practice and has represented various activist groups including RodStarz and G1 of Rebel Diaz, Critical Mass, residents fighting the expansion of Columbia University and families against the Rudy Giuliani's 2008 campaign for President of the United States. He also frequently wrote op-ed columns at major New York City newspapers, such as the New York Times, Newsday, the New York Daily News, and the Amsterdam News. Siegel has taught a class at New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn, New York and has served on the boards of many foundations.

In 2001, Siegel ran for New York City Public Advocate and lost to Betsy Gotbaum in a runoff. In 2005, he ran again, but was likewise unsuccessful.^[2] He was again a candidate in the 2009 election, losing in the Democratic primary to Bill de Blasio. In 2010, Siegel negotiated a settlement with New York City, ensuring that online journalists would receive access to official press credentials.

In 2012, Siegel, along with colleagues Herbert Teitelbaum, Saralee Evans and Emily Jane Goodman, formed a new law firm, Siegel Teitelbaum & Evans, LLP. The firm handles a wide variety of legal issues.^[3]

Comment:  Smells like MSF behind it to me.

looks like round 1 goes to the nurse

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/31/kaci-hickox-ebola-quarantine_n_6082146.html

The let Typhoid mary out too, once.  They had to put her back again when she returned to being a cook and killing her employers.

She is effectively acting like a terrorist.
Doesn't Homeland Security have the right to detain?