Kaci Hickox, the combative nurse who vowed to defy Maine’s quarantine for health-care workers who’ve treated Ebola patients, took a defiant hourlong bike ride with her boyfriend Thursday morning.
State troopers followed the couple to monitor her escapade, but couldn’t detain her without a judge’s court order.
State officials planned to go to court in an effort to detain Hickox for the remainder of the 21-day incubation period for Ebola that ends on Nov. 10.
Hickox threatened to sue when she was forcibly quarantined in New Jersey after landing at Newark Airport from Sierra Leone on Friday.
“I don’t plan on sticking to the guidelines,” she told the “Today” show via Skype on Wednesday. “If the restrictions placed on me by the state of Maine are not lifted by Thursday morning, I will go to court to fight for my freedom.”
Maine Gov. Paul LePage has vowed to enforce the 21-day quarantine.
Hickox’s lawyer, civil-rights attorney Norman Siegel, has said he hoped to avoid a court fight.
“We’re still trying to negotiate to see if we can resolve it,” Siegel told The Post earlier.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Maine issued a statement Thursday morning saying there is no justification to limit Hickox’s civil liberties, the Portland Press Herald reported.
“In times like this, it is of utmost importance that the government remain transparent and even-handed and avoid overreaction,” Executive Director Alison Beyea said. “Extreme measures like mandatory quarantines and police intervention raise serious concerns about government overreach, not to mention frighten the public.”
