Temporary victory for state sets up larger battle with Kaci Hickox

A judge in Maine ordered a nurse who has been clashing with state officials over her defiance of a voluntary Ebola quarantine to temporarily follow quarantine measures like like avoiding public places and transportation and submitting to monitoring by health workers.

The order from a local court came Thursday, ahead of a hearing expected to take place soon. The state is pushing the nurse, Kaci Hickox, to follow quarantine guidelines laid out by federal officials for people at “some risk” of Ebola, the Portland Press Herald reports. The court said in its Thursday order that its decision has “critical implications” for Hickox’s Constitutionally-protected freedoms and for “the public’s right to be protected from… potential severe harm.”

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Hickox, who recently returned from West Africa to Ebola patients suffering from the outbreak that has killed almost 5,000 people, went for a bike ride with her boyfriend Thursday in defiance of Maine’s voluntary quarantine guidelines. With the court’s new ruling, state officials in Maine have won a temporary victory pending a hearing on the matter, which needs to be held within 10 days.

Hickox has not shown any symptoms and has tested negative for the disease, which has a 21-day incubation period. She was fiercely critical of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie when she was first quarantined on a state order there before being allowed to return home to Maine, calling it a violation of her human rights. Health advocates have criticized quarantine measures put in place as putting fear over science and potentially hampering efforts to contain the outbreak in West Africa by making it harder for health workers to travel to and from the region.

“I’m fighting for something much more than myself,” Hickox said this week. “There are so many aid workers coming back. It scares me to think how they’re going to be treated and how they’re going to feel.”