A Kentucky couple was placed on house arrest after one of them tested positive for coronavirus and refused to sign documents agreeing to quarantine at home.
Elizabeth Linscott and her husband, Isaiah, displayed their ankle monitors on NBC affiliate WAVE last week. Linscott told the station that after testing positive for coronavirus and later refusing to sign a Self-isolation and Controlled Movement Agreed Order, the Hardin County Sheriff’s Department arrived at their Hardin County home with stay-at-home orders for her, Isaiah and their infant daughter.
”I open up the door and there’s like eight different people,” Isaiah said. “Five different cars and I’m like what the heck’s going on? This guy’s in a suit with a mask, it’s the health department guy and he has three different papers for us.”
The ankle monitors the couple was ordered to wear will alert law enforcement if they travel more than 200 feet from their house.
Elizabeth Linscott said she got tested for COVID-19 so she could visit her parents in Michigan with less worry.
But she tested positive, without symptoms, and she said the local health department asked her to sign documents that would stop her from traveling anywhere without calling the department first.
She said she chose not to sign the documents because “if I have to go to the ER, if I have to go to the hospital, I’m not going to wait to get the approval to go.”
The couple said they did not refuse to self quarantine, and had planned to do so.
”That’s exactly what the Director of the Public Health Department told the judge, that I was refusing to self-quarantine because of this and that was not the case at all. I never said that,” Elizabeth Linscott said. “We didn’t rob a store, we didn’t steal something, we didn’t hit and run, we didn’t do anything wrong.”
The Linscotts told WAVE that they plan to get an attorney. Neither Elizabeth nor Isaiah Linscott responded to additional requests for comment.
The Lincoln Trail District Health Department, which services the Hardin County Health Center, also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a statement, Hardin County Sheriff John Ward said the office “serves Court Orders from both Hardin Circuit and District Courts on a daily basis.”
A Kentucky courts spokeswoman said she could not comment on pending court cases.
