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Quarantine ruling: Russia sends woman back after she escapes

Published:Monday | February 17, 2020 | 9:23 AM
An emergency medic helps Alla Ilyina, who broke out of the hospital on February 7 after learning that she would have to spend 14 days in isolation instead of the 24 hours doctors promised her, to fasten a seat belt inside an ambulance after a court session in St.Petersburg, Russia, Monday, February 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)

MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian court on Monday ordered a woman who escaped from a virus quarantine to return back to the hospital she fled and stay under quarantine for at least two more days.

The ruling underlined the chaotic public health approaches being taken to stop the spread of the new coronavirus from China.

Alla llyina was admitted to the hospital in the northern Russian city of St. Petersburg on February 6 with a sore throat and was tested for the new virus because she had returned from China five days earlier.

She broke out of the hospital the next day by disabling an electronic lock in her room after finding out she would have to spend 14 days in isolation instead of the 24 hours that doctors promised her.

In an Instagram post, Ilyina said doctors told her that she tested negative for the virus but still had to remain quarantined for two weeks.

“Wild,” Ilyina wrote. “All three tests showed I was completely healthy, so why the hell the quarantine?”

Her brazen departure apparently embarrassed Russian authorities.

Several days later, Russia’s public health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor filed a lawsuit against her, asking the court to order compulsory hospitalisation for her.

The virus, which emerged in central China in December, has infected more than 71,000 people, killing 1,770 patients in mainland China and five others elsewhere.

China has instituted strict lockdown measures on over 60 million people in central Hubei province and other nations are taking their own measures — including mandatory 14-day quarantines — to make sure the virus does not get established on their territory.

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