Nurse Kaci Hickox Agrees to Self-Monitor Until Nov. 10 - East Idaho News

Nurse Kaci Hickox Agrees to Self-Monitor Until Nov. 10

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ABC Kaci Hickox ml 141029 16x9 992?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1415042735673ABC News(FORT KENT, Maine) — Kaci Hickox, the nurse who treated Ebola patients in West Africa and fought a mandatory quarantine last week, will not need to participate in a hearing Tuesday to rehash whether she’ll need to stay home for the next 10 days.

A judge in Augustus, Maine, ruled in Hickox’s favor Friday, issuing a temporary order that she could leave her home and spend time in public spaces despite state officials’ attempts to force her into mandatory quarantine and force her to take an Ebola blood test.

The matter was scheduled for a hearing Tuesday, but that hearing has been canceled because Hickox agreed to comply with the temporary order until her 21-day incubation period is up on Nov 10. She will need to participate in active monitoring, coordinate her travel with officials and report any symptoms if they appear.

“We just found common ground with the state of Maine,” Hickox’s lawyer, Norman Siegel, told ABC News. “You can find it. You just have to work hard and listen even if you disagree with them.”

Hickox had been treating patients in Sierra Leone with Doctors Without Borders before she returned to the United States and landed in Newark Liberty International airport on Oct. 24. Upon landing, she was questioned for six hours and quarantined in an isolation tent through the weekend.

On Monday, she was allowed to drive home to Maine. Once there, officials first suggested a voluntary quarantine and then sought to legally enforce it.

But Hickox said she wouldn’t comply because the quarantine rules weren’t “scientifically valid.” She said she fought the quarantine for all the other health workers expected to return from West Africa in the coming weeks.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, she can’t spread Ebola — which she’s twice tested negative for — if she doesn’t have symptoms, and even then, others would need to be in contact with her bodily fluids to catch it.

“I am humbled today by the judge’s decision and even more humbled by the support that we have received by the town of Fort Kent, the state of Maine, across the United States and even across the border,” Hickox, 33, told reporters Monday from her home in Fort Kent.


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