Kaci Hickox, the Maine nurse who was at the heart of a state-versus-individual battle over Ebola-related quarantines, will have the official OK to step out her front door again at 11:59 p.m. Monday.
Her plans? Dinner and a relocation, she said.
The Los Angeles Times reported that her 21-day incubation period and daily Ebola symptom monitoring ends Monday afternoon, and her initial plans are to visit a restaurant with her boyfriend. At the same time, Ms. Hickox said she’s a bit worried about the reception she’ll receive from the public.
“We’re still thankful we’ve had a lot of great support in this community,” she said, the Los Angeles Times reported. “But I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t make me a little bit nervous thinking about people from the other side of the debate and how they might react to me.”
Ms. Hickox, who was quarantined in New Jersey after volunteering for Doctors Without Borders and treating Ebola patients in West Africa, said that she’d received a letter from one person who expressed the hope that she’d die from Ebola.
She protested her government-imposed quarantine and ultimately won the right to go home to Maine. She never showed any signs of the disease. Two blood tests confirmed she was virus free. Yet government officials ordered her to undergo a 21-day quarantine — an order she defied and that led to a legal battle with Maine Gov. Paul LePage.
Ms. Hickox and her boyfriend said they would be moving from Maine. Boyfriend Ted Wilbur said their hope was “to try and get our lives back on track” by living in a different state, NPR reported.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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