I never had Ebola. I never had symptoms of Ebola. I tested negative for Ebola the first night I stayed in New Jersey governor Chris Christie’s private prison in Newark. I am now past the incubation period – meaning that I will not develop symptoms of Ebola.
November 17, 2014
Kaci Hickox says "I never had Ebola, so please stop calling me 'the Ebola Nurse' – now!"
I like the dissonance between "please" and "now!"
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114 comments:
"I never had Ebola. I never had symptoms of Ebola."
Which of course isn't the point of a quarantine.
"I tested negative for Ebola the first night I stayed in New Jersey governor Chris Christie’s private prison in Newark."
Which, again is not the point. She could have tested positive if the symptoms had emerged. And why is she dissing Newark? Must be a racist.
Living proof that being a courageous caregiver does not insulate you from being an obnoxious, self important fool.
Yes, because those tests are 100% reliable.
When Martin Salia’s Ebola test came back negative, his friends and colleagues threw their arms around him. They shook his hand. They patted him on the back. They removed their protective gear and cried.
But when his symptoms remained nearly a week later, Salia took another test, on Nov. 10. This one came back positive, sending the Sierra Leonean doctor with ties to Maryland on a desperate, belated quest for treatment and forcing the colleagues who had embraced him into quarantine.
Dr. Salia has died.
Her course of action was despicably irresponsible. If she didn't want to be called the Ebola Nurse, she ought to have behaved responsibly.
Paul LePage should send her a gift basket--her snotty, two middle fingers in the air attitude about his Ebola quarantine policy probably gave him an extra few thousand votes in Maine.
She's probably right about not having Ebola, but there's somethng about the cavalier attitude of "I don't have it so your precautions are dumb and I'll do whatever I want" that enrages people. Challenge the governors, make your statements to the press, but stomach a few days in voluntary house quarantine while doing so. Otherwise it just looks like you're so sure of your own medical expertise that you can risk spreading a nasty, deadly disease to others.
Is her damn 15 minutes up yet?
Is this her way of saying we've stopped paying attention to her?
I think she is doing a pretty good job of leveraging her fifteen minutes of fame which I think is what she really wants to do.
A very self centered woman.
SHUT UP, Kaci!
"I never had Ebola. I never had symptoms of Ebola. I tested negative for Ebola the first night I stayed in New Jersey governor Chris Christie’s private prison in Newark"
SHUT UP!!!!!
Do you suppose she's aware that her "I don't have Ebola so there was never a valid reason to demand I be quarantined" reasoning is faulty?
Her after-the-fact reasoning is like an airline pilot saying, "I was falling-down drunk but I still managed to land the plane, so there was never a problem: therefore the airline was wrong to fire me, and the co-pilot was wrong to demand I hand over control of the aircraft."
No, she's no longer at risk of being found to have contracted Ebola, and I wish her well for that.
Perhaps, freed from that worry, she will learn to become a more responsible and reasonable person. But I'm not holding my breath, and I'm content for her to sink back into obscurity.
She's a touchy Ebola nurse.
The doctor who just died was told he didn't have ebola. Then proceeded to die from it. So just because she was told she didn't have it doesn't mean she wouldn't get it. Again, stressing the need for a containment.
Guess her hopes for a made-for-tv movie fell through.
She is high maintenance. It is all about her all of the time.
"I never had Ebola. I never had symptoms of Ebola."
It is ALL about ME until I decide it is no longer about ME.
What a self centered little priss. Her own self assured knowledge that she was not infected was NEVER the point. The point was that everyone else was not 100% sure she was not infected and everyone else has a right to be protected from "little special snowflake" until others are sure she is not infected too. She has a right not to be locked up (her words) just as I have a right not to be infected with a virus with a world wide mortality rate over 50%.
If she were a "real nurse" instead of a pencil pusher, she would understand that instead of calling the waaaaambulance as soon as she was the least little inconvenienced.
tough noogies.
Please go away Ebola Nurse. Now!
Please go away!
I doubt she ever did much back there to contract anything. Meanwhile, the poor doctor who seemed to have helped patients in Sierra Leone has died. Too bad they could not save him.
I'll call this arrogant stain the Ebola Nurse until the day I die.
Which I hope will never happen. Not the dying part, the part where I pay attention to this entitled, nasty woman ever again.
She earned the title of "Ebola nurse" through her flagrant violation of best practices in risk management. I wonder if this is a systemic problem in the "Doctors without Borders" group, or if it is limited to the egoistic prerogative of this one nurse.
"I tested negative for Ebola the first night I stayed in"
This is the part that enraged me. Because if she knew a damn thing about Ebola she would have known that test meant nothing in the early stages. As Dr. Salia found out, sadly.
Now I will think of her no more.
My dear Ms. Hickox, you are being referred to as "the Ebola nurse" only because some people are too polite and charitable to call you "that irrational attention whore".
Now that her 15 minutes of fame are over, she will probably try to run for Congress like Sandra Fluke!! Luckily, the people were too smart to elect Fluke...
Remember, Bill Frist and Rand Paul had no medical expertise whatsoever when they offered their opinions on public health matters. This nurse, however, is a regular Albert Schwietzer.
Isn't this called the Streisand effect?
How about "Ebola Bitch" instead?
The doctor who just died first tested negative for ebola. So, the Ebola Nurse needs to chill.
Shanna:
Exactly. Following infection, there may be neither symptoms to observe nor antigens in sufficient quantity to detect. The nurse rationalizes her choice with the same premise or faith as many people when they equate evolution following conception and approaching death. The evolutionary scheme is the same in the life cycle of disease-causing antigen and human life. The perception of the latter as equal to the former is telling.
This nurse is selfish and obnoxious - is that the universal opinion of most Americans?
Chris Christie’s private prison in Newark
He has a private prison!! Somehow, I just refuse to see him in leather...
"Diabetes nurses care for patients that suffer from diabetes."
In that sense, in which I would imagine she still takes some pride, she was and will always be an ebola nurse.
What kind of shirt is she wearing?
He has a private prison!! Somehow, I just refuse to see him in leather...
Well in all fairness, the New Jersey State Police uniforms do have a whiff of the authoritarian about them.
per Left Bank -- an Ebola nurse is someone who treats Ebola. Isn't that what she does?
I'd ask her, but that would give her a reason to stay in the spotlight that she so obviously loves.
My question is who are Norman Siegel and Steve Hyman who contributed to the article?
Vitriol coaches?
She's right. The traditional nomenclature is [Disease] [First Name], like Typhoid Mary. She should be Ebola Kaci, not the Ebola Nurse.
OK. Siegel is the lawyer. That explains the word selection.
Missing the important issue: what fashion statement was she making?
Balfagor nailed it. Hickox deserves to be the "Ebola Nurse" forever.
So she never had Ebola; what she had was a massive case of chutzpah, jimmy crack corn and I don't care, and all the rest of you can take a flying leap off a short pier, because I'm going to do what I danged well please.
So yeah, I won't call her the Ebola Nurse---but I just might call her an arrogant self centered twit.
And if memory serves, back in the early days of the AIDS epidemic in the USA, doctors traced the start of the disease back to just one sexually promiscuous male flight steward from Canada. He was busy spreading his charms and sharing his disease back in the mid 1970's.
...the New Jersey State Police uniforms do have a whiff of the authoritarian about them.
More than a whiff. Who are they channeling, Ernst Röhm?
Thanks for the Senate majority loser! What liberal will volunteer to tell the American people to go to Hell next election?
I would say Karl Rove was paying her, but she won't shut up after she made the sale.
I guess we could call her "the selfish nurse" or the "obnoxious nurse" or the "rules are for little people nurse".
Any of you guys call her the Ebola Nurse, she'll kill ya.
I've mentioned this before -- she's a bureaucrat with a nursing certificate, working for the CDC as an Epidemic Information Specialist. CDC doesn't TREAT ANYONE, as Dr. Frieden keeps pointing out, and somehow, if Kaci was over there as a volunteer it's slipped everyone's attention. I believe she was processing paper for CDC and had absolutely no patient contact whatsoever, which would go a long way to explain her absolute certitude about non-infectability. Alas for Kaci, she also wanted to work that Hero Nurse halo angle, or so it seems, and just let people assume that nurses do nursing. So they made all the other assumptions that go along with that, and those assumptions didn't quite work for her.
She and her boyfriend seem really into trying to tell people what to say.
Call her "Mother Sheehan" or something.
I believe she was processing paper for CDC and had absolutely no patient contact whatsoever, which would go a long way to explain her absolute certitude about non-infectability. Alas for Kaci, she also wanted to work that Hero Nurse halo angle, or so it seems, and just let people assume that nurses do nursing.
Ah. Well if she'd just said "I'm not a real nurse and I never got within a mile of anyone infected with ebola," I don't think I'd have had nearly the concern.
"Self-absorbed nurse," maybe.
Yes, she's all the things everyone says -- but what about the judge who said the State of Maine couldn't quarantine her? The law has recognized quarantines as permissible infringements on personal liberty since time immemorial. As I understand it, the judge bought the Ebola Nurse's claim that she didn't have Ebola and so was no threat to anyone. I'm sure he would have been very disappointed if it turned out that she did have Ebola and infected her friends and neighbors. But then she doesn't seem to have many friends, so maybe there wasn't much risk after all.
Curious George wtote:
Any of you guys call her the Ebola Nurse, she'll kill ya.
Lighten up Francis.
Lighten up Francis.
damn...comment in the 50's and I repeat the one just in front of me?
A sly commenter on this topic at Ace of Spades HQ wondered if she should be called "The Nurse Formerly Known as The Ebola Nurse".
She's alive and Martin Salia is dead. Both had negative tests for Ebola.
My atheism is correct; there is no way a just God could have allowed this result.
Well she's not really doing nurse work is she? So she ought to be Ebolawoman. Or maybe Ebolagirl if she feels youthful.
but what about the judge who said the State of Maine couldn't quarantine her?
The re-elected Republican governor of Maine probably drank many a toast to him.
But keep at it libs. You know best.
Ebola Kaci (thanks, Matt!) should just admit that Johnathan Gruber speaks for her. They have much in common.
The election's over so no need for any ebola fear-mongering going forward.
Do you suppose she's aware that her "I don't have Ebola so there was never a valid reason to demand I be quarantined" reasoning is faulty?
No it's not. The people criticizing her reasoning know fuck all about viral disease and are talking out their ass. There was never a reason to quarantine her because she had no symptoms.
The fact her critics are missing -- or more likely simply deliberating ignoring, or unable to comprehend -- is that unless you have symptoms you are not contagious, and even if you're symptomatic unless you actually directly barf or bleed on someone, transmission is unlikely. (Take note of Patient Zero in Texas, the family of whom lived with him for days, no moon suits or anything, and not a one of whom developed Ebola.) Since she never had symptoms, there was never a reason to quarantine her.
Of course, one could argue semi-hysterically that anyone who returns from Africa should be quarantined, because we can't trust them to go to a hospital when they develop symptoms of a deadly disease, and get quarantined. They might choose to wander around in public instead, throwing up and bleeding on people in the subway, and thereby spreading Ebola.
But why stop there? It's always possible for someone to travel from Africa to the Netherlands, say, in which case -- we should quarantine everyone who came from the Netherlands who had contact with someome from Africa! But how can we know that? So...we should quarantine everyone who came from anywhere in the world! But it could sneak across in an illegal or something...!
Only solution: Let's quarantine everyone everywhere! Everyone stay home, in separate rooms, and eated canned food until The Danger passes (or we find some other doom porn to excite us).
Decades of requiring American high school students to study biology have apparently had no useful effect at all. The general response has been no more enlightened and rational than was the response of 13th century English villagers to the Black Death in the next village.
This is why I'm against teaching evolution in high schools: it absorbs time that could much more usefully be spent teaching people aspects of what science has discovered in the past 500 years.
The doctor who just died first tested negative for ebola. So, the Ebola Nurse needs to chill.
He was symptomatic, ferfuxsake. He was sick. The only question was -- with what? They thought they had ruled out Ebola, but oh well, that was wrong. But it was 100% clear he had something, and the fact that he'd been exposed to it in Africa was a very good reason to suspect Ebola.
Let's see if we can lay this out very clearly:
Patient #1: Clearly sick. Could it be Ebola? Maybe, maybe not. Let's test. First test comes back negative. Hooray! It's something else! But uh oh, he develops still more symptoms and a later test comes back positive. Bummer.
Patient #2: Clearly not sick. Could it be Ebola? No, because she's not sick. You can't be sick with Ebola without being sick at all.
"I like the dissonance between 'please' and 'now!'"
Yes, it puts me in mind of this exchange between Wednesday Addams and her mother Morticia at the dinner table:
WEDNESDAY
May I have the salt?
MORTICIA
What do we say?
WEDNESDAY
(dutifully)
NOW.
There was never a reason to quarantine her because she had no symptoms.
Quarantine is exactly what you do in such a case -- straight from the CDC:
"Quarantine separates and restricts the movement of people who were exposed to a contagious disease to see if they become sick."
Steve Uhr: "The election's over so no need for any ebola fear-mongering going forward."
Steve Uhr is very very very very opposed to fear-mongering.
Speaking of fear mongering, have the Republicans re-instituted slavery like the lefties claimed they would, or burned down any black churches, or lynched more blacks yet?
I mean, we all know that there is nothing to this ebola thing (Steve assures us...BTW, wasn't it just a few hours ago that the doctor back from Africa in Nebraska died?) but putting the black man back in chains in the US is a very close fought thing.
We could call her "Ebola Bint". It's pithier.
Lydia: "Quarantine is exactly what you do in such a case -- straight from the CDC:"
No no Lydia.
That can't be from the CDC (and common sense).
Nope.
It's those republican fear-mongers pushing the quarantine guidelines!
Drago -- FOCUS -- there was never any reason to quarantine the "ebola nurse." She had no symptoms - she could not transmit the virus even if she had it.
Nor did I assure anyone that ebola is not a problem. It is a big problem. But the solution is not to get all worked up over one nurse who showed no symptoms.
I'm sure the actions of Christie had nothing at all to do with politics.
I never thought the republicans would bring back slavery, etc., however that might work,but feel free to assume you know my views on everything.
Btw- the democrats engaged in fear mongering as well, arguing that the republicans voted against CDC funding, etc., putting us all at risk.
Re: Carl Pham:
The fact her critics are missing -- or more likely simply deliberating ignoring, or unable to comprehend -- is that unless you have symptoms you are not contagious, and even if you're symptomatic unless you actually directly barf or bleed on someone, transmission is unlikely.
Why would you think her critics are unaware of this? She would have become infectious after symptoms showed up. If she's out and about, in an airplane or wherever, when symptoms show up, well, everyone around her is potentially exposed. The whole point of quarantine is to limit this possibility by controlling the movement of potentially infected persons before they become infectious so that you're dealing with a small, known, and controlled population of potential infectees, rather than trying to track down everyone the vector came in contact with after he/she turned infectious.
And that's assuming that nonsymptomatic individuals cannot transmit ebola. That is apparently less clear than we might like, given the small sample sizes we've had to deal with, and the less than ideal conditions under which the disease has been tracked in the past. Here's a link collecting a few articles (NY Times, LA Times) noting that some people who are infectious have no fever (note though that the NYT article is presented in somewhat overblown terms, since it seems like the amount of virus in the blood of asymptomatic individuals was tiny and had to be amplified using PCR).
The best argument against quarantine in the case of Ebolawoman is simply that she didn't engage in any patient care whatsoever while in the Ebola zone, and (if true) that she did all her work in clean zones outside of Ebola treatment facilities.
Well put, but she still was at risk for Ebola. The Precautionary Principle is not just for liberals to use as justification when they see fit.
Look y'all. I think the Ebola Nurse is right. But until we know for sure...from an expert or something, or if the CDC issues a protocol, maybe we should call her the Ebola Nurse anyway, but only out of an abundance of caution
Any word on the Ebola infected ISIS terrorists camped out at our border? That was a thing not too long ago, should we still be frightened by that?
Steve Uhr: "Drago -- FOCUS -- there was never any reason to quarantine the "ebola nurse." She had no symptoms - she could not transmit the virus even if she had it."
You don't ever have symptoms...until you do.
And there is already backpedaling on transmission possibilities prior to the carrier "knowingly" displaying symptoms.
The point is there is still much we don't know about ebola and it's ease of transmission.
Quarantine is a perfectly reasonable step to be taken under those circumstances.
Steve Uhr: "I never thought the republicans would bring back slavery, etc...."
LOL
Well, thanks for that.
garage mahal: "Any word on the Ebola infected ISIS terrorists camped out at our border? That was a thing not too long ago, should we still be frightened by that?"
What is more likely? Weaponization of an infectious disease, or the discovery of "secret routers"?
"secret routers"have been a "thing" for quite awhile in some less than educated circles.
The general response has been no more enlightened and rational than was the response of 13th century English villagers to the Black Death in the next village.
Yeaah Carl...
But guess what...if we are wrong, one woman, or a few individuals, are minorly inconvienced. If you are wrong, the world ends.
Given science's recent record, especially Global warming, excuse me if I err on the side of the survial of western civilization.
What is more likely? Weaponization of an infectious disease, or the discovery of "secret routers"?
I would have to say secret routers, since that discovery has already been made. Remember, Walker's Former Deputy Chief Of Staff is headed behind bars.
Review of Human-to-Human Transmission of Ebola Virus
Interim U.S. Guidance for Monitoring and Movement of Persons with Potential Ebola Virus Exposure
Hickox ignored best practices in risk management, and unilaterally established her own guidance irrespective of historical evidence and clinical data.
So, in what capacity did she function to confront the Ebola pandemic? There is a suggestion that her role was served in the office, rather than in the field, and she neither interacted nor was exposed to the antigen. Then the next question is why she misrepresented her service during and after her public testimony.
Does anybody else notice how much venom a lefty woman can put into the word "Please!"
Tim -- The reason the Maine judge ruled as he did is because the state could not present any evidence supporting a quarantine. Wonder why the state couldn't find even ONE medical expert to testify under oath that she posed a real risk? Perhaps the judge should have simply locked her up based on his reading of the polls. Is that the type of country you want to live in?
Michael K:
She has a sense of entitlement that defies decency. The only rational and reasonable excuse she can offer for her behavior is that she never served in a role that exposed her to the antigen. It that is true, then she needs to explain why she did not divulge that information upfront, but rather chose to leave people to speculate about the nature of her service and risk profile.
"Lighten up Francis."
"damn...comment in the 50's and I repeat the one just in front of me?"
You could have added a comma and at least had the advantage of being grammatically correct.
"I never thought the republicans would bring back slavery, etc."
Since they're the ones that got rid of it in the first place it wouldn't make a lot of sense for them to bring it back, would it? The Democrats, on the other hand...
Remember everyone, if we can't 100% guarantee Yucca Mountain'll hold up for 10,000 years the Precautionary Principle says it must be rejected from consideration. An environmental studies article says "The fundamental notion behind the Precautionary Principle is that if we are not completely sure that we will succeed in a given course of action, and if the damage associated with failure is great, we must not move forward." The science is settled.
Saw two very obnoxious Obots much like this ebola nurse on Greta now. They were defending what Gruber said and their talking point was that Gruber was just explaining how DC works. Rich Lowery was effectively silenced and bullied and Greta's sub Martha was walked all over, esp. by the one sitting in the middle. They were both journolisters, one from WAPO and the bully in the middle was probably from Politico. Fuck them.
Just watched CBS Evening News.
Jonathan Gruber never was.
"Nurse Grudge" might be a a better long term moniker.
and will never be.
garage: "I would have to say secret routers, since that discovery has already been made. Remember, Walker's Former Deputy Chief Of Staff is headed behind bars."
Yes! Of course you would!
Of course, back in the real world bio weapons have been around for how long now?
Sometimes your ignorance is truly breathtaking.
I strongly recommend you pick up a book such as this: http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Anthrax-Weaponization-Infectious-Diseases/dp/1588294382
from the comments here and her saying she didn't like that moniker, my wish may have come true: no one will hire her ever again.
Thanks again for the lecture Steve Uhr!
Now tell my why I am too stupid to decide on Obamacare if it is presented honestly!
There's a reason why doctors are told not to take care of themselves or someone close. Confirmation bias always rears its ugly head at the worst possible time.
Astounding how the anti quarantine folks here can't grasp the purpose of a quarantine. The primary purpose of a quarantine is to isolate people who MAY come down with symptoms of infectious diseases. The whole reason behind a national, uniformed medical service goes straight to this core. There's a very good reason why uniformed members of the U.S. Public Health Service hold the ranks of military officers, specifically Naval officers.
It was long established by the time the United States were founded, that when a plague ship entered a harbor, you quarantined the ship, not just the symptomatic members of the crew. The entire crew. Then you waited. You buried those who died, and the ones who remained after 42 days went on their merry way. This was a fact of nautical life, and was expected by sailors in those circumstances. Waiting until someone exhibits symptoms before you quarantine them defies the logic and purpose of a quarantine. the whole idea is to isolate people you think may come down with symptoms, and wait to see what happens.
Ebola Kaci was and still is way out of line.
"garage mahal said...
I would have to say secret routers, since that discovery has already been made. Remember, Walker's Former Deputy Chief Of Staff is headed behind bars."
Not because of secrets routers. And Walker is headed back to the statehouse!
The problem, Chief Mojo, with your sensible disquisition, is that liberals instinctively defend their strong-man leader, in this case Obama, and are beyond reason.
Whatever the Ebola nurse says she wants, I'm likely to do the opposite.
Ebola nurse. Ebola nurse. Ebola nurse. Kaci, you're an Ebola nurse. Oh, hey, nice meeting you, Ebola nurse, but could you stand over there so I don't get Ebola from you? That's right, I know you've been cleared of having Ebola, but I still think of you as a big, annoying pile of Ebola. Oh, and have a happy Ebola Nurse Thanksgiving!
"The only rational and reasonable excuse she can offer for her behavior is that she never served in a role that exposed her to the antigen"
She is a bureaucrat. I posted a link to her summary in the CDC. She is a nurse "Epidemiology Fellow."
Balfegor (5:40 pm) explains with great clarity why persons who have been/may have been exposed to Ebola should be quarantined. All I can add is that a medical professional should set a good example. Even if the Ebola Nurse wasn't a "real" nurse and never got close to sick people, she ought to feel a professional obligation to set the right example. So it is my prayer that no responsible agency will ever hire her in a professional capacity. With that in mind, please don't forget that her real name is KACI HICKOX (aka "The Ebola Nurse").
Tim - I don't think you are too stupid to decide on Obamacare if it is presently honestly.
I think the mere fact that someone could test negative for Ebola while sick and then later die of Ebola shows a certain lack of je ne sais quoi in preventative care and diagnosis protocols. That's too much uncertainty for public safety. That's a no brainer.
Why is there any attempt at mainstreaming nonchalance and "how dare you test or quarantine me among health professionals? It's downright unprofessional. That's another no brainer.
Kaci Hickox's epitaph: "I got scorned and I didn't even get a lousy shirt out of it."
Maybe now she can grow some real fucking eyebrows.
Michael K:
Ah, you confirmed my bias, and now the question remains: why she thought so little of her fellow Americans that she tried to eat her charitable cake and have it too.
Since we shouldn't call her the Ebola Nurse, how about the Ebola AssClown?
Has it been 42 days already?
What a horrible, obnoxious person, this Ebola Nurse.
The Godfather: Balfegor (5:40 pm) explains with great clarity...
As always...
...why persons who have been/may have been exposed to Ebola should be quarantined.
Carl has been showing symptons of hysteria hysteria - the hysterical delusion that people reacting with normal common sense and prudence are being hysterical. Highly contagious to the susceptible.
I know it's late and this thread is probably dead, but just to clarify the 'no symptoms' bit.
Initially, at the airport, she apparently registered a fever. This was because, according to her, she was so mad she was 'flushed' iirc. That was why they isolated her in NJ initially. If she had had a fever, that would have been a symptom, and she would have been potentially contagious. So basically this whole thing started because she couldn't control her anger issues.
Second, a quarantine is for when you don't have a disease but have been exposed potentially. Not for when you have the disease already. That's all been explained above so I won't go into it, but she is an idiot or lying when she claimed that testing negative at an early stage meant you did not have and would never develop the disease.
Does she prefer "irresponsible about ebola nurse?"
Or how about "ebola bitch?"
Ebola Bitch has alliteration as a plus.
Kaci, I'm very glad you do not have Ebola but ---- you!
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