Kaci Hickox, the nurse who returned to the U.S. from treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone in October, this weekend promised to stay away from the center of town even though she won’t be required to stay in quarantine.
“I didn’t mean to bring this media storm onto this community, either, but I think unfortunately sometimes, especially when up against governors, you don’t always have an option,” she said Sunday, according to the Portland Press Herald.
She said that she and her boyfriends want to respect town residents’ request that she stay out of the town center in Fort Kent, Maine.
On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Hickox apologized to the town residents.
“I understand that the community has been through a lot in the past week and that I do, you know, apologize to them for that,” she said. “I will not go into town, into crowded public places. You know, I have had a few friends come visit me in my home and that’s absolutely fantastic.”
She did maintain, however, that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was wrong to quarantine her as soon as she arrived in the U.S.
“I just read an op-ed by Bill Fahey today. And he said, you know, when Governor Christie stated that it was an abundance of caution, which is his reasoning for putting health care workers in sort of quarantine for three weeks, it was really an abundance of politics,” she said. And I think all of the scientific and medical and public health community agrees “with me on that statement.”
