--- title: Ebola: Maine Judge Says Kaci Hickox Doesn't Have to Quarantine description: A victory for Kaci Hickox canonical: https://time.com/3550960/ebola-quarantine-maine-kaci-hickox/ author: Denver Nicks article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-10-31T14:59:39.000Z article:modified_time: 2024-01-17T17:19:15.000Z article:section: Health og:title: Ebola: Maine Judge Says Kaci Hickox Doesn't Have to Quarantine og:description: A victory for Kaci Hickox og:url: https://time.com/3550960/ebola-quarantine-maine-kaci-hickox/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt00e4a57f91a00943/698763b2524fc036d6dea2a3/ap69593531699.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1992 og:image:height: 1121 og:image:alt: Kaci Hickox, Ted Wilbur og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Ebola: Maine Judge Says Kaci Hickox Doesn't Have to Quarantine twitter:description: A victory for Kaci Hickox twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt00e4a57f91a00943/698763b2524fc036d6dea2a3/ap69593531699.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Judge Rejects Maine's Attempt to Forcibly Quarantine Ebola Nurse > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Health Matters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Health Matters is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. The latest health news and expert advice on living well. Health Matters makes the fast-moving world of health more useful, surprising and human, from the latest science and medical breakthroughs to practical ideas for living better. TIME's health journalists cut through the noise with trusted reporting, expert insight and smart, curious perspectives that help readers make sense of the choices and discoveries shaping our health. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ## Video: How Suits Protect Doctors From Ebola [Watch (HLS stream): How Suits Protect Doctors From Ebola](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/O5USUvDI.m3u8) (2:12)  _Published 2014-08-04. While people rely on doctors to stop the Ebola outbreaks in Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia, doctors rely on suits to protect them._  by [Denver Nicks](https://time.com/author/denver-nicks/)  ## Denver Nicks Updated: Jan 17, 2024 5:19 PM UTCPublished: Oct 31, 2014 2:59 PM UTC  Nurse Kaci Hickox, right, and her boyfriend, Ted Wilbur, take delivery of a pizza at their home in Fort Kent, Maine, Thursday, Oct. 30, 2014. Nurse Kaci Hickox, right, and her boyfriend, Ted Wilbur, take delivery of a pizza at their home in Fort Kent, Maine, Thursday, Oct. 30, 2014. Robert F. Bukaty—AP  by [Denver Nicks](https://time.com/author/denver-nicks/)  ## Denver Nicks Updated: Jan 17, 2024 5:19 PM UTCPublished: Oct 31, 2014 2:59 PM UTC A judge in Maine rejected the state’s attempt to forcibly quarantine a nurse who has been [clashing with officials over her defiance of a voluntary Ebola quarantine](http://time.com/3548847/kaci-hickox-ebola-nurse-quarantine-bike-ride/) on Friday, reversing a court order that briefly mandated she avoid public places and transportation. The nurse still must continue daily temperature monitoring and approve travel with state officials, the judge ordered. The order came Friday following a temporary [order](http://www.pressherald.com/2014/10/31/state-files-petition-to-force-nurse-to-follow-cdc-guidelines/document/) Thursday. The state has been pushing the nurse, Kaci Hickox, to follow quarantine guidelines laid out by federal officials for people at “some risk” of Ebola. “I’m humbled today by the judge’s decision and even more humbled by the support that we have received from the town, the state of Maine, across the U.S. and even across the globe,” Hickox told reporters. “I know that Ebola is a scary disease. I have seen it face to face. I know that we are nowhere near winning this battle. We’ll only win this battle as we continue this discussion, as we gain a better collective understanding about Ebola and public health, as we overcome the fear and most importantly as we end the outbreak that is still ongoing in West Africa today.” Maine Gov. Paul LePage described the decision as “unfortunate,” but promised to enforce it. **MORE:** [The CDC has less power than you think and likes it that way](http://time.com/3516827/cdc-constitution-quarantine/) Hickox, who recently returned from West Africa to Ebola patients suffering from the outbreak that has killed almost 5,000 people, went for a [bike ride](http://time.com/3548847/kaci-hickox-ebola-nurse-quarantine-bike-ride/) with her boyfriend Thursday in defiance of Maine’s voluntary quarantine guidelines. District Court Chief Judge Charles LaVerdiere cared for Ebola patients “generously, kindly and with compassion,” CNN reports. “We owe her and all professionals who give of themselves in this way a debt of gratitude,” he wrote in his decision. Hickox has not shown any symptoms and has tested negative for the disease, which has a 21-day incubation period. She was fiercely critical of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie when she was first quarantined on a state order there before being allowed to return home to Maine, calling it a violation of her human rights. Health advocates have criticized quarantine measures put in place as putting fear over science and potentially hampering efforts to contain the outbreak in West Africa by making it harder for health workers to travel to and from the region. “I’m fighting for something much more than myself,” [Hickox said this week](http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/31/health/us-ebola/). “There are so many aid workers coming back. It scares me to think how they’re going to be treated and how they’re going to feel.” ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] We touch our face about 1, 000 times a day. And these suits are about 115, 116 degrees you can, and you're losing three to five liters of sweat every time you go in, inside these suits. You can imagine. That you just want to rub your eyes or rub the sweat from your face, and you can't do that because that's an opportunity to come into contact with the virus. I was recently deployed on behalf of the World Health Organization to to Guinea to help with the Ebola outbreak. When you're providing care to patients, you're constantly being exposed to blood, vomit, diarrhea, every bodily fluid that's there. I'm sure you've seen pictures of the personal protection equipment or PPE that we're required to wear. We start with a base layer of scrubs, and then these thick rubber boots that come up to our knees. It's on top of the scrubs and the boots, we actually wear, an impermeable Tyvek suit, that, is incredibly hot. And then we also wear two pairs of gloves. On top of the tivex suit we have to put a hood, that is an impermeable hood that covers every other part of our, part of our head. We have to wear a respirator that covers our nose and our mouth, and then finally a pair of goggles that cover, cover our eyes on top of the hood. So basically, literally nothing is left uncovered. So that's just getting dressed. The PPE itself is, is a good first step. But even with all these protective equipments you're still handling needles. And you're still being exposed to, to patients' body fluids. We talk a lot about how how difficult the working conditions are. And how hot it and how restrictive these suits are but, I would say it comes nowhere near the difficult experience that it must be to be a patient. To be infected with it. Or to be the loved one of a patient who's going through that. And for me, that's something that I always think about. [ MUSIC ] That's the thing about this virus, it's actually... I hate to say the word easy, but it's really easy to control. 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