Maine Nurse Continues to Defy Ebola Quarantine Orders; Goes on Bike Ride with Boyfriend

Our society’s obsession with “rights”- with no regard for the responsibility that comes with them – could end up being its downfall. Kaci Hickox, the nurse who treated Ebola patients in West Africa, is continuing to defy quarantine orders, going out for a pleasant bike ride with her boyfriend on Thursday.

141030-kaci-hickox-bike-01_e4a6e17e6f9a0d38f4ff98457bd99cf4.nbcnews-ux-720-520

Hickox was kept in an isolation tent for three days after she returned to the United States last week. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie let her go on Monday, and she was driven to Maine, which imposed its own quarantine.

Some states have gone further than federal health officials and ordered quarantines for health workers returning from Ebola-stricken countries in Africa, even when they show no symptoms and therefore would not be contagious anyway.

Late Wednesday night, with a state trooper looking on, Hickox stepped outside the house in Fort Kent where she has been holed up. She said: “I’m not willing to stand here and let my civil rights be violated when it’s not science-based.”

Well, actually, it is science-based: Health workers who have handled Ebola patients are the most at risk to contract it and then spread it into the general population. All of the U.S. Ebola cases so far have involved people who either traveled to West Africa or treated Ebola-stricken patients who had done so. But apparently, putting your community at risk for Ebola is a “civil right” now. It’s no use bringing up the concept of “responsibility” or “duty” to people like Hickox, because they frankly don’t care.

At least African nations insisted upon quarantining not just Ebola patients, but entire villages that had been hit by the viruses. America can’t even manage to do that. If we don’t put aside the idea of unlimited rights with no responsibilities soon, we are in big trouble.

Mentioned in this article: