Appeals court judge mandates quarantine after KY man exposed to coronavirus refused
A Kentucky man who refused to stay home or be tested after being exposed to the novel coronavirus has been ordered to do both by a state Court of Appeals judge.
Judge Jeff S. Taylor issued an order requiring the 27-year-old man in McCreary County to self-quarantine from 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 5, to 7 p.m. Saturday.
The order also requires the man to cooperate with the McCreary County Health Department in trying to trace who he had contact with after he was exposed to the virus, and, if he tests positive, to follow other directions from the health department.
The man has been identified only as John Doe in court filings.
The case is one of a handful in Kentucky in which officials have gone to court to force people to quarantine.
After John Doe’s mother tested positive for the coronavirus around April 20, health officials asked him to stay home for 14 days and be tested.
The man lives with his grandmother, but was in close contact with his mother in a car twice in the days before her positive test, creating a presumption he had been exposed.
However, Doe would not give the health department information on who else he’d been close to or where he’d been, and refused to quarantine, according to the court record.
McCreary County Attorney Austin Price sought a court order for him to stay home.
Circuit Judge Dan Ballou declined to grant the request, voicing doubts on whether the court had the authority to order Doe to quarantine or cooperate with the health department, according to the court record.
Price asked the Court of Appeals to intervene, leading to Taylor’s order on Tuesday.
Taylor said in the order that the health department has the authority to order people to quarantine if necessary to control communicable diseases, and that Doe’s actions “clearly thwarted the health department’s performance of its duties.”
Taylor said he was tempted to order a 14-day quarantine for Doe, but that the health department had only asked for a four-day period.
Price said he and health officials were not trying to punish Doe, but rather to protect public health.
Kentucky has had nearly 6,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases. McCreary County has had only 11 confirmed cases and no deaths, according to the Lake Cumberland District Health Department.
This story was originally published May 7, 2020 at 10:10 AM.
