A year ago this week, Kaci Hickox was thrust into the media spotlight when she battled state-imposed quarantines in New Jersey and Maine.
Hickox is the nurse who returned to the U.S. from west Africa, where she had volunteered to treat Ebola patients. Looking back on the events that unfolded, Hickox says she hopes authorities learn from past mistakes.
Hickox was initially quarantined in New Jersey for more than three days before she was allowed to return to Maine. At the time, she lived in Fort Kent with her partner Ted Wilbur, a student at the University of Maine at Fort Kent.
During the week that followed, both she and Wilbur battled state and university policies that sought to restrict where the couple could go. Wilbur says fear took a powerful hold of the public.
"I didn't ever expect to deal with that kind of discrimination and hysteria that we saw," he says.
It started when Hickox and Wilbur decided to stop off in Freeport at the home of Wilbur's aunt and uncle. Wilbur says then-director of the state Center for Disease Control Sheila Pinette informed them that if they developed Ebola, the aunt and uncle would be quarantined, even if they had no symptoms.
"Kaci and I were forced to leave at 6 p.m. and make a six-hour drive to northern Maine — to Fort Kent — and she said before we left, 'Make sure you don't go to the bathroom along the entire way because you could infect someone,'" Wilbur says.
In emails obtained by MPBN, Hickox told Pinette she would not get out of the car, and she would call when they arrived in Fort Kent. Pinette replied that she did not agree for them to travel by private car. Instead, she wanted them transported in a medically equipped vehicle to treat Hickox if she became ill.
Hickox, who was asymptomatic, says she was shocked by how she was treated.
"Fear cannot trump scientific evidence," she says. "And really, public health law needs to be maintained."
According to the World Health Organization, someone with Ebola cannot infect another person until they develop symptoms. The virus isn't transmitted through the air — it's transmitted through direct contact with infected blood or body fluids.
Despite the fact that Hickox did not have any symptoms, the state sought court approval for Hickox to remain in home quarantine for 21 days. And Wilbur faced a university that asked him to stay off campus because he lived with Hickox. The irony, Wilbur says, is that he was in a nursing program.
"And they're supposed to be science-based, and yet when push came to shove, they allowed hysteria and fear to run things," he says.
"I think I wish I could have communicated more a sense of calmness," says Ray Phinney, associate dean of student life and development at the university.
He says the day Hickox's story broke, the school was inundated with nearly 300 phone calls. The situation was overwhelming for a small campus, Phinney says, and UMFK has since examined its response and created protocols for similar situations. One is to use multiple social media platforms to communicate a strong, clear message.
"If there was any outbreak of anything — that would be our No. 1 priority is more education in regards to what the actual disease is," he says.
And when it comes to health issues, Phinney says he learned it's better to work with the local hospital instead of the state CDC.
"The CDC, I mean, is a political organization, and can be controlled by the governor, the politics, multiple different aspects can affect what they do and how they decide things," he says. "And a lot of times when we contacted them and asked for updated information, they'd say 'Please see the handout that we distributed on such and such a date.' Which was usually the first date that we had contacted them. We were looking for updated information."
Phinney also says he regrets the outcome of the school's decision to keep Wilbur off campus. Wilbur dropped out of UMFK's nursing program after the ordeal was over. Though he was accepted into nursing at the University of Southern Maine, Hickox couldn't find work in Maine. So, the couple, who are now married, moved to Oregon, where Wilbur teaches middle school social studies.
"This really affected our lives in a lot of ways," he says. "I would be a nurse right now if this all hadn't happened and they responded the way they did."
As for the state's perspective on what unfolded a year ago, Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner Mary Mayhew says in a written statement that the LePage administration acted "with an abundance of caution in order to protect the health of 1.3 million Mainers," and that the state "would take the same precautions today if faced with the same situation."
She says Hickox "acted selfishly in her disregard for the concerns of her neighbors and in her pursuit of celebrity."
That's a sentiment echoed in letters the couple received in the days after the quarantine was imposed. Hickox says the reason she battled her in-home quarantine — a quarantine that was ultimately rejected by a state judge — is because public health decisions should be made based on experts and scientists.
"And anything other than that truly is discrimination," she says. "It's humans reacting on fear."
Last week, Hickox filed a lawsuit against the state of New Jersey for unlawfully holding her against her will. She hopes it will ensure that future public health policies are based on facts.
