White House Press Secretary: Ebola Nurse’s Work in West Africa ‘Should Be Honored and Respected’

BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest spoke at Monday’s press briefing, discussing the controversial quarantine that nurse Kaci Hickox was placed in after arriving at Newark International Airport in New Jersey.

Hickox was released to return home to Maine on Monday, after having been put in quarantine at a New Jersey hospital on Friday. She had arrived in the U.S. from Sierra Leone.

“She didn’t travel over there because she was getting a big paycheck,” Earnest said, “presumably she’s not going to be inducted into the Nurses Hall of Fame for it. She did it out of concern for her fellow man.” That concern is part of what will, in the long-term, help in stopping the spread of Ebola in West Africa, Earnest said. “So her service and commitment to this cause is something that should be honored and respected…and I don’t think we do that by making her live in a tent for two or three days.”

Still, Earnest pointed out, the decision to quarantine Hickox was not one to be made by the White House. “In some ways you can sort of take this up with James Madison, right? We have a federal system in this country in which states are…given significant authority for governing their constituents.”

Hickox had criticized the restrictions put in place in New York and New Jersey last week.  She has also hired a lawyer and is considering a lawsuit.

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