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Kaci Hickox AP/Press Association Images

Judge says nurse who refused Ebola quarantine can now leave home

The judge said that Kaci Hickox is not infectious.

A US JUDGE has ruled that a nurse quarantined by her home state after treating Ebola patients in Africa could leave home and frequent public places, saying she was not infectious.

The decision from a district judge in the northeastern state of Maine is the latest twist in a bitter row over enforced quarantine of American medics returning from relief work in west Africa.

Temporary order

It reversed a temporary order that prevented her from visiting cinemas and shopping centers, and demanded she keep three feet away from others while Judge Charles LaVerdiere examined the case.

Kaci Hickox insists that she is perfectly healthy, and since returning to the US has fought efforts by authorities to keep her in quarantine for 21 days, the incubation period for the deadly virus that has killed nearly 5,000 people, most of them in west Africa.

People infected with Ebola are contagious if showing symptoms, like a fever, and Hickox has argued that since she was not showing any symptoms, there was no need to keep her under quarantine.

Bike ride

Ebola Nurse Quarantined Maine AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

Maine went to court to force her to stay at home in the town of Fort Kent. On Thursday, she went out for a bike ride with her boyfriend, tailed by TV cameras and the police.

“The state has not met its burden at this time to prove by clear and convincing evidence that limiting respondent’s movements to the degree requested is ‘necessary to protect other individuals,’” LaVerdiere wrote in the ruling.

He said Hickox must continue with direct active monitoring, coordinate her travel with public health authorities and notify them immediately if any symptom for the killer virus appears.

The judge also told Hickox to “demonstrate her full understanding of human nature and the real fear” that exists over the deadly virus.

“She should guide herself accordingly,” he wrote.

Ebola Nurse Quarantined Maine AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

US Ebola patients

So far the US has treated nine Ebola victims, with one of them — a man who contracted it in Liberia — dying from the virus. Apart from two nurses who had treated the Liberian patient, the rest of the Ebola victims became infected in Africa.

In a press conference reported by CNN, one of Hickox’s lawyers, Steve Hyman, called the ruling “an indication of thoughtfulness versus irrationality.”

Hickox had become “a prisoner because of misconceptions and a whole host of irrational arguments,” he said.

Deterrent for health workers?

Experts say quarantining medical professionals who have shown no symptoms of the disease is counter-productive and could deter other US workers from helping contain west Africa’s Ebola crisis.

The White House and public health officials have criticized measures taken by some US states that quarantine medics returning from treating Ebola-infected patients in west Africa.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie kept Hickox in an isolation tent for three days after she flew back from Sierra Leone, before letting her go on Monday after she tested negative for Ebola.

She was driven to Maine, which imposed its own quarantine, which would have normally ended on November 10.

“They will not allow me to leave my house and have any interaction with the public, even though I am completely healthy and symptom-free,” Hickox said Wednesday.

President Barack Obama said at the time that those who volunteer on the front lines in the battle against Ebola should be applauded.

“We need to call them what they are, which is American heroes,” Obama said.

- © AFP, 2014

Read: Further Ebola trial runs to be carried out to ensure health services are ready>

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    Mute DN
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    Jul 30th 2014, 7:27 PM

    I lived in Rotterdam for 11 months abd the Baja beach club used RFID chips for patrons and members. Keeps the trouble makers away. Only a matter of time before we’re implanted with these for everyday use like banking, social welfare etc.. George Orwell saw it coming a mile off :)

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    Mute Ryan Carroll
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    Jul 30th 2014, 7:35 PM

    George Orwell saw no such thing. He saw a mass surveillance state, not RFID chips.

    Do you really think people will agree to having stuff plugged into their body when they can get the same thing with a plastic card in their wallet? come off the f__g stage with that tin foil hat bulls!t

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    Mute DN
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    Jul 30th 2014, 8:02 PM

    B–lshit? Well people did and still do have these chip planted into their wrists. You ignorant fool! Look it up! My Orwell comment was aimed at the orwellian state which will happen someday hopefully not my lifetime. Tin foil is good for wrapping my samdwhiches. Not so good for hat making. C U Next Tuesday.

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    Mute Joseph Siddall
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    Jul 31st 2014, 2:43 AM

    Thousands of pets are already microchipped to allow cross-border travel. Very simple procedure. Unlikely to get to the human population anytime soon, but it is surely a government’s wet dream to be able to track its citizens. The old “nothing to hide – nothing to fear” malarkey. Some day, perhaps.

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    Mute Glen
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    Jul 30th 2014, 6:34 PM

    How long before humans are chipped ?

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    Mute IrishGravyTrain
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    Jul 30th 2014, 6:46 PM

    Put tinfoil on your head and around your balls and you’ll be sorted.

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    Mute Glen
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    Jul 30th 2014, 6:53 PM

    Oh stop with the tin foil BS
    It’s been extremely well documented that the powers that be want to use chips in people for ID, banking, buying and selling, medical history ect. Two company’s in California have been working on the technology for years they already use it in animals
    It’s only a matter of time before it’s used in humans.

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    Mute Ablitive
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    Jul 30th 2014, 6:54 PM

    As soon as Benjamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama gives the go ahead…

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    Mute Ryan Carroll
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    Jul 30th 2014, 7:09 PM

    It being on the Alex Jones show is not the same as ”being documented”, it’s been discussed as a conceptual thing not a serious proposal, and it would never fly as a mandatory thing anyway.
    We have Micheal Myers loose in the house slashing at us with his knife, and you are worried about the boogey man in your dreams.

    The EU is not coming for you, the Bilderbergers are not coming for you, it was not a cruize missile that hit the pentagon…the only big brother threat that’s real is the NSA and the 5 eyes system.
    Calm down.

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    Mute Glen
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    Jul 30th 2014, 7:17 PM

    There are dozens of ” Alex jones types” who have written and lectured about this …. Google is your friend check out the company’s that manufacture them before making an ill-informed comments.

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    Mute Ryan Carroll
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    Jul 30th 2014, 7:33 PM

    Glen Google is not research, Generation Y seems to fatally confuse the two.

    Research is finding facts and evidence, google will get you anything but. A google search can find you ‘evidence’ to confirm any crack pot theory you like. There are 1000s of internet pages explaining in painstaking deatail what explosives were put into the towers and how, why a cruize missile hit the pentagon, that JFK was killed because he signed an executive order about gold.

    You’re getting worried about a phantom threat that does not exist.

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    Mute Niall H
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    Jul 30th 2014, 7:35 PM

    It was not a airplane that hit the pentagon either

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    Mute Ryan Carroll
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    Jul 30th 2014, 7:39 PM

    Oh dear…..

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    Mute Ryan Carroll
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    Jul 30th 2014, 8:05 PM

    The plane was seen by 100s of people with the naked eye as it clipped lights on it’s way across to hit the building.

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    Mute Niall H
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    Jul 30th 2014, 8:32 PM

    I agree with most things you say on this site Ryan as you speak a lot of sense but I honestly think you need to open your eyes on this one.

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    Mute Ryan Carroll
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    Jul 30th 2014, 8:39 PM

    Niall…people…saw…the plane…crashing …into …the building….I have a relative who personally saw the damn thing heading towards the building from their office.

    Just because it did not punch a cartoonish airplane shape into a reenforced concrete building resistant to attack (the physics of it folds the wings back into the fuselage and the fuselage is more liquid than solid when it’s crashing.

    It’s not about opening my eyes, I’m quite open, go on the appliances story, where the very same people up-ticking your conspiracy theory are down-ticking something that is factually indisputable, and you will see how open minded I am. But I’m a scientist, I believe in evidence forming a hypothesis and then further evidence leading to a logical conclusion.
    There is not a shred of evidence that anything other than a plane hit the Pentagon.
    All the red thumbs in the universe won’t change that.

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    Mute Niall H
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    Jul 31st 2014, 12:18 AM

    Well….then….maybe……I’ll……use….all….the…..full….stops….in….the….universe…

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    Mute Mark Oman
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    Jul 30th 2014, 7:19 PM

    I like chips

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    Mute Paul Roche
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    Jul 30th 2014, 10:33 PM

    It would appear that those who comment using “tinfoil hat” as a derogatory term for those who despair of the Big Brother effect on privacy really have no clue about how technology has made it easier for government to track citizens.

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    Mute Paul Carey
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    Jul 30th 2014, 6:29 PM

    Nice to know they’re ‘ensureing’.

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    Mute Niall Ó Cionnaith
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    Jul 30th 2014, 6:25 PM

    Very snazzy.

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    Mute Gerald Santucci
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    Jul 30th 2014, 6:55 PM

    These 2 EN will inform and protect the European citizens while at the same time building trust in the technology, hence supporting market take-off (which is less significant in Europe compared to other world regions). A process of 8 years that involved ALL stakehoders.

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