County sheriff says deputies are stationed at home of man with COVID-19
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The sheriff in Nelson County, Kentucky, says his deputies are stationed at the home of a man with COVID-19 to enforce a quarantine order.
The 53-year-old man with the virus hasn’t been identified, report the Kentucky Standard, the Louisville Courier Journal, the Lexington Herald-Leader and the Washington Post. Authorities say he left the hospital against medical advice and refused to self-quarantine.
Nelson County Sheriff Ramon Pineiroa told the Kentucky Standard that the man was cooperating after deputies were sent to his home. “We’re going to be out here 24/7 for two weeks,” he told the publication.
The man’s wife told the Kentucky Standard that she was unaware that her husband had a COVID-19 test when they left the hospital Thursday. He had been sharing a room with another patient before he left, she said.
The woman said she and her husband drove directly to their home, where they remained Friday. That night, health officials contacted her husband and told him that he had COVID-19.
The woman said she and her husband told health officials that they knew he couldn’t have COVID-19 because he never ran a fever. The man had dealt with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease for years, and he went to the hospital when he had difficulty breathing and his oxygen levels dropped.
“We were not going to change our lifestyle because we know it isn’t true,” she told the Kentucky Standard.
Kentucky law gives county health departments the power to isolate infected people who refuse to quarantine, according to the Louisville Courier Journal.
The county judge-executive declared a state of emergency that allowed him to impose the quarantine, according to the Louisville Courier Journal and the Lexington Herald-Leader. In addition, county attorney Matthew Hite said a confidential court order concerning a resident had been obtained, but he couldn’t go into details.
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