Kaci Hickox, the Ebola nurse who was released from mandatory isolation at a New Jersey hospital this week after she was confined there upon her return from West Africa, says she will now fight a 21-day home quarantine in Maine.
Hickox and her attorneys said they will take legal action if necessary to fight the
forced quarantine, according to the Bangor Daily News. The nurse claims she has showed no symptoms of Ebola and tested negative for the deadly disease twice since returning to the U.S. on Friday, her attorney Steven Hyman told the newspaper.
Maine Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner Mary Mayhew said in a news conference Tuesday night that the state has the power to enforce a quarantine on individuals deemed a public health risk through a court order, the Daily News reported.
"We will take additional measures and pursue appropriate authority to ensure they make no public contact,"
Mayhew said at the news conference, according to CNN. "I want to be sure everyone understands what quarantine means in this case. Stating it plainly, what we are asking for is that individuals who had direct contact with Ebola patients stay in their home and avoid public contact until the 21 days for potential incubation has passed."
Hickox's New York civil rights lawyer Norman Siegel told the newspaper that they would challenge any court order.
"The conditions that the state of Maine is now requiring Kaci to comply with are unconstitutional and illegal and there is no justification for the state of Maine to infringe on her liberty," Siegel told the Daily News.
Maine's Centers for Disease Control director Sheila Pinette said Tuesday that she is not convinced Hickox is Ebola-free, and believes the nurse should be handled with caution.
"We don't know a lot about this virus but we do know from the experiences learned in Texas that they had some equivocal tests within the first 72 hours of testing their healthcare workers," Pinette said. "We believe that [Hickox] may have been tested too early. That is the reason why we continue to monitor this individual."
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