Ebola girl just "released: by judge - 4th amendment & ebola

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20141031/us--ebola-nurse_quarantined-maine-6f5110d256.html

With the judge's ruling, a state police cruiser parked outside her home drove away.

Oh, like that cop did not know he was violating her rights. He should be FIRED immediately.

davidmcbeth said:

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20141031/us--ebola-nurse_quarantined-maine-6f5110d256.html

With the judge's ruling, a state police cruiser parked outside her home drove away.

Oh, like that cop did not know he was violating her rights. He should be FIRED immediately.

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The cop was just following orders, and if he had refused the assignment he would have been fired. The person that should be fired is the person that made the order, the governor of Maine. Actually false imprisonment charges against the governor sounds like a good course of action.

XD40sc said:

The cop was just following orders, and if he had refused the assignment he would have been fired. The person that should be fired is the person that made the order, the governor of Maine. Actually false imprisonment charges against the governor sounds like a good course of action.

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If the cop would have been fired he would have appropriate relief under wrongful termination route or his union, depending on the union contract; so the claim that he was just following orders is a red herring.

That is the proper way of handling illegal requests from employers ...

Just my opinion, but this should never have had to go to a court or a quarantine have to be enforced. First, considering what ebola is, no one should be allowed to leave the hotzones without a three week quarantine before even leaving. Otherwise, you're basically asking to spread it. It's only a matter of time. But barring that, In her case, if she had a shred of common sense or cared even a little for others, she would have self-quarantined for the three weeks. As far as I'm concerned, she's a self-centered moron. If she doesn't have it, great. But if it were to turn out that she does, and she infected others as a result of her stupidity, she should be held civilly, if not criminally responsible, assuming she were to survive. Seriously... Three weeks of reading, watching TV, sleeping, surfing the 'net, whatever... I can think of far worse things. Regardless of if she's infected or not, because of her actions, she should NEVER work in a medical field again. She should be relegated to flipping burgers and asking 'you want fries with that?'.

Maybe she's clean, and to be honest, I hope she is. But people make mistakes. The nurse in TX obviously screwed up somewhere - quite possibly in getting out of her protective gear. The most common mistake it taking the gloves off first - HUGE FAIL.

Personally, if I were in her shoes, I would without question quarantine myself for the three weeks. If it turned out I had it and in the end I survived, if I hadn't quarantined myself and as a result, others ended up dieing as a direct result of my actions, that would forever be on my conscience, and I don't think I could ever atone for that. Not when it could have been prevented simply by isolating myself for three weeks.

357SigFan said:

Just my opinion, but this should never have had to go to a court or a quarantine have to be enforced. First, considering what ebola is, no one should be allowed to leave the hotzones without a three week quarantine before even leaving. Otherwise, you're basically asking to spread it. It's only a matter of time. But barring that, In her case, if she had a shred of common sense or cared even a little for others, she would have self-quarantined for the three weeks. As far as I'm concerned, she's a self-centered moron. If she doesn't have it, great. But if it were to turn out that she does, and she infected others as a result of her stupidity, she should be held civilly, if not criminally responsible, assuming she were to survive. Seriously... Three weeks of reading, watching TV, sleeping, surfing the 'net, whatever... I can think of far worse things. Regardless of if she's infected or not, because of her actions, she should NEVER work in a medical field again. She should be relegated to flipping burgers and asking 'you want fries with that?'.

Maybe she's clean, and to be honest, I hope she is. But people make mistakes. The nurse in TX obviously screwed up somewhere - quite possibly in getting out of her protective gear. The most common mistake it taking the gloves off first - HUGE FAIL.

Personally, if I were in her shoes, I would without question quarantine myself for the three weeks. If it turned out I had it and in the end I survived, if I hadn't quarantined myself and as a result, others ended up dieing as a direct result of my actions, that would forever be on my conscience, and I don't think I could ever atone for that. Not when it could have been prevented simply by isolating myself for three weeks.

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The judge ruled by the evidence of current science before him; how else could he? Fear is not evidence.

I would be pissed...and yes, 3 weeks of not being able to go to places I need to go to when science says its not needed is too much of an "inconvenience" .

357SigFan said:

Just my opinion, but this should never have had to go to a court or a quarantine have to be enforced. First, considering what ebola is, no one should be allowed to leave the hotzones without a three week quarantine before even leaving.

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Bingo. That's what Ft. Carson's Army units are doing.

...if she had a shred of common sense or cared even a little for others, she would have self-quarantined for the three weeks. ... But if ... she infected others as a result of her stupidity, she should be held civilly, if not criminally responsible, assuming she were to survive.

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Agreed.

This issue is exactly like balancing the freedom of speech with the safety of others when the specific issue is whether an individual should be allowed to hollar "FIRE!!!" in a crowded theater. One person's rights do NOT trump the safety of others. We all have freedom of speech, but we all have the right to life, as well. When someone's exercise of the former threatens the latter, then the former right is forfeit.

The nurse has the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but NOT when exercising those rights presents a credible risk/threat to the right to life held by tens, perhaps thousands, or even millions of others.

Do not forget your history: Typhoid Mary was but a single individual:


I wonder if this nurse will wind up being Ebola Kaci, except for the fact that the mortality rate for typhoid fever, at its worst, was 0.174%, whereas the mortality rate for Ebola ranges between 35% (more than 200 times that of typhoid) with the very best of care, to more than 85% (nearly 500 times) under epidemic conditions.

XD40sc said:

The cop was just following orders......................

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Ah, the Nuremberg defense. This is used way too often in attempt to excuse/justify the acts of a tyrant.

since9 said:

...This issue is exactly like balancing the freedom of speech with the safety of others ...

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[FONT=Verdana,Sans-serif]Kaci Hickox[/FONT] did not have ebola while she was in isolation in NJ. Two blood tests confirmed this fact. She was released when she lawyered up and NJ (Fatso), saw the writing on the wall. Yet, this matters not to a great many of our fellow citizens. Her self monitoring, as a responsible citizen should do, mattered not to many of our fellow citizens.

Getting a judge to state the obvious is what really worries me about this ebola thing. Using unfounded fears, as you do here, is exactly how liberty is extinguished. Unfounded fear is what will permit the state to extinguish our liberty with our permission.

Disgusting.

OC for ME said:

[FONT=Verdana,Sans-serif]Kaci Hickox[/FONT] did not have ebola while she was in isolation in NJ. Two blood tests confirmed this fact. She was released when she lawyered up and NJ (Fatso), saw the writing on the wall. Yet, this matters not to a great many of our fellow citizens. Her self monitoring, as a responsible citizen should do, mattered not to many of our fellow citizens.

Getting a judge to state the obvious is what really worries me about this ebola thing. Using unfounded fears, as you do here, is exactly how liberty is extinguished. Unfounded fear is what will permit the state to extinguish our liberty with our permission.

Disgusting.

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How long was she in isolation in NJ? If she was in isolation in NJ for three weeks, then I'd agree with her, but if she was in isolation for a day or three, then no. The problem is from what I've read, the blood test doesn't guarantee you're clean if the viral load isn't high enough to be detected when tested (A Blood test at day 2 & 3 may show clean, but it's possible for the viral load to not be high enough to be detected that early on), and while the self monitoring is important and responsible, IF one has the virus incubating, you do not know when it will get to the point where you're contagious. You might be taking your temp four times a day, and were good time two and went out to run an errand, then take it the third time and now you have a fever - you don't know when or where your temp escalated, so you could have become contagious and started spreading the virus at some point between the readings.

We're not talking about the Flu or some other minor inconvenience of an illness. We're talking about a virus that even with the best of care, has a very high mortality rate - some figures say over 90%. As far as I'm concerned, this should not require the 'rule of law', judges, etc. Anyone that thumbs their nose at the idea of being in quarantine after working in an ebola hotzone (And anyone that seriously thinks there is ZERO change of getting it if you've been working in a hotzone, regardless of the precautions) is a flaming moron with no regard for others, whatsoever.

I REALLY don't know why everyone is all up in arms about the idea of being quarantined after working around ebola. If you're going to be working around a pathogen such as ebola, you better know what you're dealing with - if you don't know what you're dealing with, then you shouldn't be there. Quarantine after working with a pathogen like ebola is simple common sense. We're not talking about three weeks of hard labor.

Let's put it another way - Let's say you were over there working around Ebola, come back, get tested, show negative and more or less go back to normal life, but still limit contact to a degree, but not full quarantine - you've had contact with several family members - then you develop symptoms, turns out you were infected and now have infected 5 of the 7 family members you had contact with - Now say those 5 infected 4 more family members, and it gets stopped there. Now say our of the 9 family members that ended up infected, 7 die, but you live. Just how would you feel if 7 people you love died as a result of YOUR actions? Just how much would you wish you had isolated yourself until the incubation period was over and you were absolutely confirmed to not be infected? Which would you REALLY rather do? Spend three weeks in isolation to ensure that you are definitely not infected then go about your life as usual, or go about your life before the incubation period is over because you 'tested clean', only to find out that you WERE infected and infected others as a result?

OC for ME said:

[FONT=Verdana,Sans-serif]Kaci Hickox[/FONT] did not have ebola while she was in isolation in NJ. Two blood tests confirmed this fact. She was released when she lawyered up and NJ (Fatso), saw the writing on the wall. Yet, this matters not to a great many of our fellow citizens. Her self monitoring, as a responsible citizen should do, mattered not to many of our fellow citizens.

Getting a judge to state the obvious is what really worries me about this ebola thing. Using unfounded fears, as you do here, is exactly how liberty is extinguished. Unfounded fear is what will permit the state to extinguish our liberty with our permission.

Disgusting.

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Only relevant after the incubation period is over. It is not detectable prior to onset of symptoms.

wrightme said:

Only relevant after the incubation period is over. It is not detectable prior to onset of symptoms.

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She is a medical professional. Experienced with the symptoms and testing for ebola. She claims to have monitored herself IAW current protocols. Yet none of this matters to some folks. Irrational fears not backed facts seems to be a trend with government. As OCers we should not fall victim to irrational fears and the slippery slope that those fears lead us to.

Using the threat of force to restrict a citizen's movements based only on a irrational fear is unacceptable.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/80060d5318a5480f8bd8bef6a2c0bb00/life-goes-nurse-standoff-over-ebola

357SigFan said:

How long was she in isolation in NJ?...

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Four days after her arrival in the US, which does not include travel time and the time that she was in-country yet not exposed to ebola victims.

I'm not her travel agent and the timeline of her end of contact with ebola victims until the end of the four days has not been addressed by her or the press. She is following the CDC guidelines but this does not matter to NJ, ME, and some of our fellow citizens...like ~75% of us.

OC for ME said:

She is a medical professional. Experienced with the symptoms and testing for ebola. She claims to have monitored herself IAW current protocols. Yet none of this matters to some folks. Irrational fears not backed facts seems to be a trend with government. As OCers we should not fall victim to irrational fears and the slippery slope that those fears lead us to.

Using the threat of force to restrict a citizen's movements based only on a irrational fear is unacceptable.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/80060d5318a5480f8bd8bef6a2c0bb00/life-goes-nurse-standoff-over-ebola

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Saying 'As OCers we should not fall victim to irrational fears and the slippery slope that those fears lead us to.' essentially implies that you feel that being afraid of someone OCing a firearm is the same as being afraid of the ebola virus, when the truth is they couldn't be more different. Being afraid of someone carrying a firearm is irrational, bread by brainwashing, because the firearm isn't going to jump out and shoot you, and 99.9999% (If not 100%) of people that would OC are law abiding citizens who have no need, want or desire to do harm to others. On the other hand, Ebola is something that you cannot see, smell or taste, and if you get it, you have a 90% chance of dying. I wouldn't call being afraid of something that has a 90% chance of killing you if you get it irrational. If someone has the virus cooking in them, they don't exactly get a text message saying that they're going to become contagious at 2:46pm on November 9th.

If you were to say that being afraid of Chicken Pox, the Flu, the common cold, or other common and relatively minor illnesses was irrational, I'd agree with you - but something as lethal as ebola is not exactly a common or minor illness.

It should not have to come to threat of force to impose quarantine. These people should be smart, prudent and professional enough to know that if they have been dealing with a pathogen as lethal and infectious as this, that they should be quarantined for the duration of the incubation period of the virus. You don't know when you get infected - so while it's POSSIBLE that her travel time prior to leaving could be counted, it's also possible that she could have come in contact with someone who was infected after she left the hotzone. If they can't accept this, then they shouldn't be going there in the first place.

I can tell you with absolute certainty that IF I was in that field and were to go over there, I would most certainly go into quarantine before even thinking about re-joining the general public, and especially my family. I would much rather be overly cautious then have her attitude.

357SigFan said:

Saying 'As OCers we should not fall victim to irrational fears and the slippery slope that those fears lead us to.' essentially implies that you feel that being afraid of someone OCing a firearm is the same as being afraid of the ebola virus, when the truth is they couldn't be more different. ...

I can tell you with absolute certainty that IF I was in that field and were to go over there, I would most certainly go into quarantine before even thinking about re-joining the general public, and especially my family. I would much rather be overly cautious then have her attitude.

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Not according to the CDC. Bodily fluids only.

Violate the rights of a fellow citizen based simply on the potential, regardless of the facts of any specific situation. This sentiment is exactly why OC is held in such low regard or banned out right. Fear without any facts to substantiate the fear.

OC for ME said:

Not according to the CDC. Bodily fluids only.

Violate the rights of a fellow citizen based simply on the potential, regardless of the facts of any specific situation. This sentiment is exactly why OC is held in such low regard or banned out right. Fear without any facts to substantiate the fear.

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According to the CDC, bodily fluids that can transmit ebola are: saliva, mucus, vomit, feces, sweat, tears, breast milk, urine, and semen (They didn't list blood, but I think that's a given) - meaning if it's secreted from the body in any fashion, it can carry it. Meaning a sneeze could carry it, if you 'spit' while talking, that could carry it, the sweat on your hand can carry it.

As I said, this should not have to come down to to 'violating their rights' - If these people are voluntarily going over there, they should know the risks and they should have the decency, respect and common sense to isolate themselves for the time needed to ENSURE they are not bringing it back. I would be overly cautious and do so without ever having to be told or asked to do so - but apparently I care more for the health and safety of others than this clown who didn't want have a few weeks of peace and quiet to read, rest, watch TV, play games, etc.

And what about everyone else's rights? Like since9 pointed out, we have a right to free speech, but not when that becomes a threat to others - so we do not have the right to yell 'FIRE' in a crowded theater, because that could/would be a credible threat to others in the theater. That would get you in some serious hot water - even more so if someone were injured or killed as a result. So IF she is/was carrying ebola and ended up spreading it to others as the result of her disregard for caution, what about THEIR rights? Her lack of caution would likely deprive them of their right to LIVE. If they survived, you can bet they will have to shoulder a financial burden from treatment that they needed to save their life after SHE infected them to begin with. Again, we're not talking about something that is an inconvenience - we're talking about something that will ALMOST certainly KILL YOU. The science may be accurate in that if you don't have the symptoms, you're not contagious, however, you don't know when you will become contagious if you're incubating it.

Even judges have been duped by the "fire" example .... you have the right to yell fire .. if anyone gets injured is another matter entirely.

davidmcbeth said:

Even judges have been duped by the "fire" example .... you have the right to yell fire .. if anyone gets injured is another matter entirely.

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Ok, so maybe it's 'legal' to yell fire, but if someone gets hurt, THEN it becomes something else entirely - apply that to this situation - it may be 'ok' for her to not be isolated as long as no one gets infected, but if people were to get infected, then what? All I'm saying is these people should recognize the threat and be extra cautious. The legal system should never have to enter into the situation - people should just use common sense (but that's pretty rare these days). If you can't handle the idea of being in isolation for the incubation period of the pathogen, then you shouldn't be working with it.

357SigFan said:

Ok, so maybe it's 'legal' to yell fire, but if someone gets hurt, THEN it becomes something else entirely - apply that to this situation - it may be 'ok' for her to not be isolated as long as no one gets infected, but if people were to get infected, then what? All I'm saying is these people should recognize the threat and be extra cautious. The legal system should never have to enter into the situation - people should just use common sense (but that's pretty rare these days). If you can't handle the idea of being in isolation for the incubation period of the pathogen, then you shouldn't be working with it.

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The legal system got involved because the government once again overstepped their authority. The legal system, or threat of legal action got her out of NJ after only four days of unnecessary/unlawful isolation. ME needed a judge to inform them that individual liberty will not be infringed based on a irrational fear...a "what if" justification.

OC is bad because "what if."

Nightmare said:

Nuclear power is bad because of what-if. The road to Hell is paved with what-if.

The risk/benefit ratio of quarantine and radioactivity are so high as to justify mass action, just what is problematic.

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No.

Quarantine vs radioactivity are apples/oranges, not same-same.

OC for ME said:

The legal system got involved because the government once again overstepped their authority. The legal system, or threat of legal action got her out of NJ after only four days of unnecessary/unlawful isolation. ME needed a judge to inform them that individual liberty will not be infringed based on a irrational fear...a "what if" justification.

OC is bad because "what if."

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I guess we're goign to have to agree to disagree - I would agree that the gov overstepped their authority, but it should not have come to that. She should have gone into isolation on her own accord upon returning - The fact of the matter is it takes between 2 and 21 days for the symptoms to appear and for you to become contagious. Unless you had a MAJOR 'OH ****' moment where you KNOW you were exposed (punctured your skin with an infected needle, for example), you do not know when you could have been infected, and you won't know if you were until you've been away from the area for the 21 days. Somehow, I doubt it took her two weeks to get here by boat, so when she got back, it could be argued that she still had ~20 days before she'd KNOW she was clear. The virus can live for hours on solid surfaces such as door knobs, toilet seats, etc, and days in fluids such as blood at room temp. It's not impossible or unreasonable to say that at any point while she was in a country that ebola is rampant in, she could have been exposed - even if she wasn't IN the hotzone the whole time.

Since you cannot know if you were infected until you've spent the 21 days somewhere that there's essentially zero chance of being infected, if you are infected, you won't know it and don't know when it happened so you don't know when the 'clock started' or will stop, so the only prudent thing to do to protect others is to isolate yourself for the duration. Saying 'I don't need to be isolated because I'm not showing symptoms' is reckless at best. But like I said, I guess I care more about others than clowns like her do.

And comparing 'ebola what-ifs' to 'OC what-ifs' (or any firearm related what-ifs) isn't even on the same planet. You can potentially become infected by simply by shaking the hand of someone who's contagious. Or if you have her 'I'm not showing symptoms so I don't need to be isolated' attitude and are going about your normal life, then the symptoms hit you suddenly like a ton of bricks and you vomit without warning in public - can you say massive exposure? Again, we're not talking about the common cold here. Ebola is probably one of, if not the most lethal pathogens known. Simply shaking hands with someone OCing a firearm isn't going to kill you. Shaking hands with someone that's infected with ebola and has symptoms could kill you (not HIGHLY likely, but not impossible if they have a fluid, such as sweat, on their hands).