The Governor of Maine has threatened to arrest Nurse Kaci Hickox after she broke the state's mandatory Ebola quarantine by saying: 'I don't want her within three feet of anyone.'

The 33-year-old, who tested negative for the deadly disease earlier this week, defied the guidelines by going on a bike ride with partner Ted Wilbur.

Later in the day, the pair also had a pepperoni and mushroom pizza delivered to their home in Fort Kent, Maine, before settling down to watch The Avengers film.

Her actions enraged Governor Paul LePage with lawyers from the state going to court to demand the nurse give a blood test.

'This could be resolved today. She has been exposed and she’s not cooperative, so force her to take a test. It’s so simple' he told ABC.

He also condemned the nurse for worrying her community by venturing out, breaking the 21-day quarantine period and announced he would 'exercise the full extent of his authority' to rein her in.

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Nurse Kaci Hickox went for an hour-long bike ride on Thursday morning because, she said, 'there was nothing to stop her'

The 33-year-old nurse went on a bike ride with her partner Ted Wilbur this morning as she defied the mandatory Ebola quarantine placed on her by the state of Maine

Later in the day the pair had a pizza delivered to their home Fort Kent, Maine, and waved to the waiting media as they opened the door

Governor Paul LePage has said he will 'exercise the full extent of his authority' to rein the nurse in and has insisted: 'I don't want her to be within three feet of anyone'

Miss Hickox broke her quarantine at 9am and took an ATV trail behind her home for the hour-long ride. A state trooper who had been stationed outside the house followed her in a police cruiser.

'It's just good to be out,' Miss Hickox told MailOnline as she left.

Maine police were monitoring her movements and public interactions but there was no court order to arrest the nurse.

As she returned home, she said: 'There is no court action against me. There is nothing to stop me from going for a bike ride in my home town.'

I shook Ebola nurse's hand: The moment MailOnline reporter touched quarantined Kaci Hickox On Thursday morning I woke to find myself featured in a mini-media firestorm. Why? Because I had shaken the hand of a woman I had just interviewed. But this wasn't any woman – it was Kaci Hickox, 33, the nurse who is challenging her 21-day quarantine after returning from treating Ebola victims in Sierra Leone. Stories were written of our encounter with headlines such as: 'Nurse breaks quarantine, shakes reporter's hand'. It was newsworthy because she should not have contact with the public. I was one of a handful of reporters outside her home in Fort Kent, Maine, when she decided to come outside and talk about her 'appalling' confinement. Under Maine's official health guidelines she is not supposed to be in public until the three-week period is over. That is not until November 10. The guidelines are not mandatory but are voluntary. After she made it clear that she doesn't intend to stick to the rules - which are more stringent than those imposed by the CDC - Maine officials are preparing to secure a court order to force her to stay away from the public. Defiant Hickox is living with her boyfriend, Ted Wilbur - who has been out and about talking to friends. And on Thursday she went for a bike ride followed by a gaggle of reporters and cameramen. Despite a state trooper being stationed outside the house, no one tried to prevent people from getting close to her. Wednesday night's impromptu press conference was the first time I had been face-to-face with Hickox. Towards the end she bemoaned the fact that despite showing no symptoms of infection, she shouldn't hug or even shake her hand of people she meets. On the spur of the moment, I simply said: 'I'll shake your hand,' and I did. It felt like a common courtesy to someone I had just been asking questions of. It was a brief handshake, nothing memorable, something I have done thousands of times before. She had a firm grip. She looked me briefly in the eye and thanked me. I turned to leave her property as she and Wilbur went back inside. One local Maine journalist told me he had thought about doing the same but I got there first. Medical experts say the chances of Hickox falling ill from Ebola are now extremely remote and the risk of transmitting the virus while she is healthy are so slight as to be virtually non-existent – particularly to someone like me who touched her hand so briefly. President Obama on Wednesday tried to reassure the public that it is safe to touch healthcare workers returning from Ebola 'hot zones' when he did the same and shook the hands of doctors and nurses in the 21-day risk period at the White House. The one question I have been asked repeatedly since is: 'Did I wash my hands afterwards?'. Yes I did. MARTIN GOULD Advertisement

Hickox said that she had not spoken to her lawyers about the ride and it was her decision to go out and get exercise after a day of being cooped up in her house.

The state trooper who followed them by car said he was just monitoring Miss Hickox's actions and had no intention of arresting her.

The nurse did not say whether she would venture outside again on Thursday, adding that she had to return home to prepare for her daily temperature check for Ebola symptoms from the state's Center for Disease Control.

Wilbur said the couple deliberately chose to ride their bikes on a 16-mile trail away from town to minimize their chances of bumping into people who might fear that they could catch Ebola from them.

'We went the way we did and not through the town. We did not go to the grocery store.

'We are not trying to get anyone sick — we don't believe we can get anyone sick — and we are not trying to put anyone at risk,' he said.

Fort Kent police chief Tom Pelletier called in the house and offered to bring the couple anything they need to lessen the need for them to go into town, Wilbur added.

Wilbur, a nursing student at the University of Maine at Fort Kent pointed out that it is not just aid workers whose lives are turned upside down by the quarantine rules but their families too. 'I am not able to go to school.

'If we had children they probably wouldn't be able to go to school. I have an exam Monday that I am not allowed to take and an assignment I cannot turn in.'

The university said he 'voluntarily' agreed not to attend classes, but Wilbur said: 'It's voluntary if you count that as people saying "Do you agree you can't come to class?" and I say "Do I have a choice?" and they say: "No" and I say: "Well I agree then." '

Hickox contends there is no need for quarantine because she’s showing no symptoms.

According to Ebola experts, a blood test for Ebola would only be positive if Hickox was displaying symptoms of the virus - which she says she is not.

The Ebola virus is only detectable in the blood if the disease has significantly progressed.

Miss Hickcox has not made it clear whether she would or would not be agree to taking a blood test.

LePage later added that the nurse was causing a lot of tension and worry in the community of Fort Kent.

'I don’t want her within three feet of anyone,' LePage told NBC.

On Wednesday night, Miss Hickox left the home she has been ordered to stay inside for 21 days in order to speak with the press about her 'frustrating' situation.

Standing in front of her boyfriend's house, as the police tasked with watching her looked on from across the street, Miss Hickox told the waiting media contingent that she will continue to fight her quarantine orders, even if she is charged for breaking them.

'We have been in negotiations all day with the state of Maine and tried to resolve this amicably, but they are not allowing me to leave my house and interact with the public even though I am completely healthy and symptom free,' Miss Hickox said, according to The Press Herald.

'I am frustrated by this fact, and I have been told that it is the Attorney General’s intention to file legal action against me. And if this does occur, I will challenge the legal actions.'

Hickox shook the hand of MailOnline's reporter at the scene and said: 'You could hug me. You could shake my hand. I would not give you Ebola'.

The Doctors Without Borders nurse believes she flew into New Jersey from treating dying Ebola patients in West Africa on 'the wrong day'.

She claimed that many other aid workers have entered the country and continue to do so without having to go through what she had.

Hickox said she remains healthy and has not shown any Ebola symptoms and that the measures she's being forced to comply with are over-the-top.

The nurse and her boyfriend went for a bike ride on Thursday morning and were trailed by a Maine state trooper who said he was monitoring her actions but had no intention of arresting her

Miss Hickox rides past the unmarked car of a Maine state trooper who followed the nurse but said he had no intention of arresting her

However residents of Fort Kent, a small rural, logging community, where she is staying have said that '21 days (of quarantine) is better is better than 21 deaths' and that it is a necessary precaution.

'I'm upset that Chris Christie ever let her go from New Jersey,' said resident Anne Dugal. 'He should have kept her there longer.

'She says she only had a temperature of 101 because she got upset. No-one shows a temperature because they're upset. She should stay inside.'

Ted Wilbur, Miss Hickox's boyfriend, had walked over to the police parked across the street from their house on Wednesday to check Hickox would not be arrested for leaving the house.

She did not go any further than the driveway and police remained across the street for the press conference.

Nurse Kaci Hickox left her home on a rural road in Fort Kent, Maine, to take a bike ride with her boyfriend Ted Wilbur. Police are monitoring her, but can't detain her without a court order signed by a judge

MailOnline reporter Martin Gould (pictured right) shakes the hand of nurse Kaci Hickox (left) outside her home in Fort Kent, Maine on Wednesday after she stepped outside to defy the state's Ebola quarantine

Nurse Kaci Hickox (left) and her boyfriend Ted Wilbur speak to the media on Wednesday. MailOnline reporter Martin Gould (center) shook Miss Hickox's hand following the impromptu press conference

The nurse made a point of going out on an early morning bike ride on Thursday after describing the decision to keep her under quarantine in Maine as 'appalling'

Miss Hickox returned to her home on Thursday morning trailed by reporters after she made the decision to break her Ebola quarantine

Hickox said she remains healthy and has not shown any Ebola symptoms and that the measures she's being forced to comply with are over-the-top.

However residents of Fort Kent, a small rural, logging community, where she is staying have said that '21 days (of quarantine) is better is better than 21 deaths' and that it is a necessary precaution.

'I'm upset that Chris Christie ever let her go from New Jersey,' said resident Anne Dugal. 'He should have kept her there longer.

'She says she only had a temperature of 101 because she got upset. No-one shows a temperature because they're upset. She should stay inside.'

Ted Wilbur, Miss Hickox's boyfriend, had walked over to the police parked across the street from their house on Wednesday to check Hickox would not be arrested for leaving the house.

She did not go any further than the driveway and police remained across the street for the press conference.

Defiant: Kaci Hickox and her boyfriend Ted Wilbur held a press conference outside their Fort Kent, Maine, home at 7pm on Wednesday night, despite orders by the state to stay indoors

State police troopers were stationed outside the Fort Kent, Maine, home of Kaci Hickox on Wednesday after she threatened to break Maine quarantine guidelines - however they are voluntary at the moment so it is unclear whether they would have the authority to arrest her without a court order

Attacks on Hickox have come thick and fast after she told both NBC's 'Today' show and ABC's 'Good Morning America' that she planned to stay in her home on the outskirts of Fort Kent only for one day after being driven back from New Jersey.

Maine Governor Paul LePage stationed state troopers outside the house that Hickox, 33, shares with her boyfriend Ted Wilbur, setting the stage for a showdown should she decide to leave.

The governor's office did not say whether the nurse would be arrested if she tried to leave, but said state police were stationed outside the home 'for both her protection and the health of the community'.

The state's guidelines are voluntary but Governor LePage wants to make it mandatory and enforceable with a court order.

State Health Commissioner Mary Mayhew told reporters in the capital Augusta: 'When it is made clear by an individual in this risk category that they do not intend to voluntarily stay at home for the remaining 21 days, we will immediately seek a court order.'

According to NBC the hearing is not likely to be held until Monday - the day before LePage faces re-election and four days after Hickox has vowed to leave her home.

'If I saw her in the street I wouldn't go near her,' said Dugal. 'Twenty one days is not that long a time.'

Novelist Cathie Pelletier, sitting at the next table to Dugal, agreed. 'It's not a case that she can say sorry if she is wrong and dozens of people get infected,' she said. 'I can't understand why she can't just stay at home those extra few days.'

But both the town's chief of police, Tom Pelletier — Cathie's third cousin — and Dr. Michael Sullivan, the chief medical officer at Fort Kent's hospital the Northern Maine Medical Center, said they wanted to shake Hickox's hand and thank her for the work she has been doing helping the sick.

The conflicting views go to the heart of the confusion surrounding the approach taken by the federal government, the CDC, and individual states to the Ebola crisis and quarantine rules.

They came as many took to Facebook to slam Hickox for refusing to lock herself away for three weeks - and at the medical center where panicked patients are canceling appointments - even though Hickox has gone nowhere near it, the hospital's boss said.

Hickox and Wilbur returned to their three-bedroom home on the outskirts of Fort Kent under cover of darkness on Tuesday night after a stopover at his uncle's house in Freeport, Maine.

'Twenty one days is better than 21 deaths,' said Anne Dugal (left) as she ate lunch with her mother Dolores in the Swamp Buck Restaurant in Fort Kent on Wednesday. Novelist Cathie Pelletier (right) said: 'It's not a case that she can say sorry if she is wrong and dozens of people get infected'

They had driven nearly 500 miles from Newark, New Jersey where she had been held in quarantine following her arrival in the U.S. from Africa.

Hickox, 33, had been treating Ebola sufferers in Sierra Leone with the medical charity Doctors Without Borders.

She has shown no signs of the disease but a forehead thermometer showed she had a slight temperature when she arrived at Newark Liberty International airport, which she has put down to being flustered or a faulty thermometer.

I don’t plan on sticking to the (Maine's) guidelines. I am not going to sit around and be bullied by politicians and forced to stay in my home when I am not a risk to the American public - Kaci Hickox

Governor Chris Christie departed from national policy and had tried to confine her to a tent inside a hospital for 21 days.

But after she threatened legal action and the White House intervened, she was allowed to travel on the understanding that she would put herself in voluntary isolation in accordance with Maine state guidelines.

Hickox has since declared that she will not be bullied by 'appalling' confinement rules and plans to fight for her freedom if restrictions are not lifted by Maine officials on Thursday.

Hickox has said she would abide by all the self-monitoring requirements of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This does not stop people from traveling outside their home, but instead advises them not to go to large gatherings. It also calls on them to take a series of tests twice a day to monitor whether they are developing symptoms.

Doctors insist that the virus is not contagious until symptoms develop.

On Wednesday morning, Hickox, 33, told Today: 'I don’t plan on sticking to the (Maine's) guidelines. I am not going to sit around and be bullied by politicians and forced to stay in my home when I am not a risk to the American public.'