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US judge allows ankle monitors for virus patients

Published:Monday | April 6, 2020 | 5:04 PM
Doctors and nurses work at a Mobile Health Unit for drive-thru coronavirus testing at Robert C. Byrd Clinic on the campus of the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine in Lewisburg, West Virginia, Tuesday, March 24, 2020. (Jenny Harnish/The Register-Herald via AP)

CHARLESTON, West Virginia (AP) — A West Virginia judge in the county with the state’s highest coronavirus caseload has approved strapping ankle monitors to people who test positive but refuse to quarantine, officials said Monday.

The order allows Kanawha County sheriffs to use the GPS bracelets after a county commissioner said “a few” people with the virus ignored isolation orders.

“We do not want to use the GPS ankle bracelets to enforce the quarantines, however, if we must we will. This must be taken seriously,” said Kent Carper, president of the Kanawha County Commission.

The ruling comes after judges in Kentucky put ankle monitors on at least three people who have flouted quarantine orders after testing positive.

Kanawha County, where the state Capitol is located, was included in a set of executive orders last week from Republican Governor Jim Justice that tightened existing virus restrictions in six counties that make up 60% of the state’s positive cases.

At least 345 people statewide have the virus after 9,940 tests, health officials said Monday.

Kanawha County has the state’s highest number of cases with at least 56 positives.

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