FITNESS FIRST

Governor Asks Ebola Nurse for Blood Test

Will drop quarantine mandate if she cooperates.

Kaci Hickox is a woman of her word. After vowing to defy Maine’s voluntary quarantine for health workers who treated Ebola patients, she and her boyfriend left their home to go for a bicycle ride. The two were followed by state police; however they could not detain her. Maine’s governor, Paul LePage, said the state would drop its demand for Hickox to remain in quarantine if she submits to a blood test for the virus. “This could be resolved today,” LePage told ABC News. “She has been exposed and she’s not cooperative, so force her to take a test. It’s so simple.” Hickox has said that a quarantine is unnecessary as she is showing no symptoms and has tested negative for the Ebola virus. State officials have said they’re going to court to try to detain her for the remainder of the 21-day incubation period. Hickox volunteered in Sierra Leone with Doctors Without Borders, and was the first person forced into New Jersey’s mandatory quarantine before she was released and traveled home to Maine.