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Kaci Hickox, boyfriend go for bike ride in defiance of 21-day Ebola quarantine

The nurse who has fought officials' attempts to place her under quarantine after returning from West Africa went on a bike ride Thursday morning.

By Gabrielle Levy
Courtesy Kaci Hickox.
1 of 2 | Courtesy Kaci Hickox.

FORT KENT, Maine, Oct. 30 (UPI) -- The Maine nurse who vowed to ignore a state-imposed quarantine after she returned from treating Ebola in West Africa has made good on her promise.

Kaci Hickox and her boyfriend, Ted Wilbur, left her home for a bike ride around 9 a.m. Thursday. Several members of the media and two state troopers in an unmarked car followed them up the road.

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"It's a beautiful day for a bike ride," Hickox said.

Wilbur said they planned to bike to Fort Kent golf course and back, a round trip distance of about six miles. A trooper followed them onto Fort Kent Heritage Trail, an abandoned railroad bed running between Fort Kent and St. Francis, but did not attempt to stop them.

Hickox returned to the United States from West Africa Thursday and was placed in an isolation tent at a Newark, N.J. hospital, despite showing no symptoms of Ebola and testing negative for the disease.

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New Jersey is one of several states, including Maine, demanding healthcare workers be placed under a mandatory 21-day quarantine upon returning from the Ebola hot zone. Gov. Chris Christie ultimately relented, allowing Hickox to leave after three days, and she arrived back in Fort Kent on Tuesday night.

Hickox said Wednesday she had no plans to obey a quarantine past Thursday, and would challenge any legal action the state took against her.

On Wednesday, Maine Department of Health and Human Services commissioner Mary Mayhew said the state intends to go forward with obtaining a court order to enforce the quarantine.

Speaking to media outside her home Wednesday night, Hickox appeared frustrated but defiant.

"We have been in negotiations all day with the state of Maine and tried to resolve this amicably, but they are not allowing me to leave my house and interact with the public even though I am completely healthy and symptom-free," she said. "I am frustrated by this fact, and I have been told that it is the attorney general's intention to file legal action against me. And if this does occur, I will challenge the legal actions."

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Maine is one of several states that has implemented restrictions that exceed guidelines released this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which recommends people at "some risk" -- including healthcare workers who were in contact with Ebola patients but wore protective gear -- check their temperatures twice a day and have their public activities assessed on a case-by-case basis.

In a White House statement Wednesday, President Obama directed implicit criticism at those states, which also include New Jersey, New York, Illinois and Florida, that are treating returning healthcare workers with fear rather than as "the heroes that they are."

"We have to keep in mind that if we're discouraging our health care workers, who are prepared to make these sacrifices, from traveling to these places in need, then we're not doing our job in terms of looking after our own public health and safety," Obama said.

"We've got hundreds of Americans from across the country -- nurses, doctors, public health workers, soldiers, engineers, mechanics -- who are putting themselves on the front lines of this fight," he said. "When they come home, they deserve to be treated properly. They deserve to be treated like the heroes that they are."

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Ebola, while very contagious, is relatively difficult to catch. It is only spread through contact with the bodily fluid of an infected person who is already showing symptoms.

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