To Wait and To Serve

Perhaps I am in the minority (at least among the more liberally minded), but I am astounded at Kaci Hickox’s response to her mandatory quarantine upon returning from Sierra Leone where she worked as an epidemiologist treating Ebola victims.  And don’t for a minute think that I am happy about being on the same side of an issue as Chris Christie.  I hate it.  But it is Ms. Hickox’s fault.  Here is some of what she had to say;


Commenting on New Jersey’s mandatory 21 quarantine, she states that this is a “knee jerk reaction by politicians” which is “preposterous.”  She adds that “this [quarantine policy] is an extreme that is really unacceptable” and she feels that her “basic human rights have been violated.”  “To put me thorough this emotional and physical stress is completely unacceptable,” she complains.  And then goes so far as to state, “To put me in prison is just inhumane.”  In addition to being quarantined, she was not permitted access to her luggage, had to wear paper scrubs, and had no shower, flush toilet, or television.  


Was it an admirable thing she did by serving the sick in Sierra Leone?  Most certainly.  She demonstrated a concern both to save those who were sick and to help keep those who were healthy from becoming infected. 


How then is it that she cannot demonstrate the same level of concern for her own fellow citizens, for this 21 day quarantine may be as significant an action as actively serving in Sierra Leone?  


She has been tested, and the results are negative.  Still, there have been false negatives.  The test themselves cannot claim 100 percent accuracy.  If she were allowed to interact with others and then developed symptoms of the virus within this three week period, she would have potentially infected who knows how many individuals who may then have infected who know how many more.


Now if she were being sent to Guantanamo Bay for an indefinite period of time with inadequate essentials and without any contact with the outside world, I would agree that she is being treating inhumanely and that her basic human rights were being violated.  


She is in a hospital for three weeks.  Is that cruel and unusual?  Certainly not. I think those who are worrying about her so-called torture should remember four things

1. Health care workers treating Ebola patients are the most susceptible to the virus
2. According to the World Health Organization the incubation period (from infection to the onset of symptoms) is between 2 and 21 days.  In other words, an apparently healthy and strong Ms. Hickox may in fact be infected. 
3. The tests for Ebola detection may be 99 percent accurate, but not 100 percent.  In other words, Ms. Hickox may have received false negative test results.
4. Sometimes the needs of others outweigh the needs of one person.  

The litmus test must be whether from a disinterested and objective point of view, Ms. Hickox is being denied her human rights.
  

Being in isolation (with use of computer and cell phone and regular take-out food) for three weeks until the incubation period is over is a very small price to pay for performing the duty she owes her own country men and women. 


If a mandatory 21 day quarantine dissuades any health care professional from joining Doctors Without Borders to help the people of Sierra Leone and certain countries in Western Africa, that person was never serious about helping to begin with. Any reasonable person who has witnessed this disease first hand would tacitly accept the 21 day precautionary measure.  

I am sure that most of those who serve as heroes in fighting this virus throughout the world are not as petty as Ms. Hickox.  The majority of them are heroes in the profoundest sense of the world:  we will never know their names, for their goal was never notoriety. 

John Milton, one of the ten best poets of all times, understood that doing one’s duty comes in many forms when he wrote a poem about his own blindness.  He concludes: "They also serve who only stand and wait.”

Stand and wait for three short weeks Ms. Hickox, and you will have served us well.