House Arrest and Ankle Monitors: New Symptoms of COVID-19?

ST. PAUL, Minn. —Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom (CCHF) is issuing a warning to Americans about heavy-handed pandemic enforcement and recommending people think twice about testing and choosing to participate in contact tracing.

On July 16, a couple from Kentucky made national news when they were forcibly placed under house arrest after one of them tested ‘positive’ for the coronavirus. According to news reports, Elizabeth Linscott decided to get tested before traveling to see her elderly parents, even though she showed no active symptoms of having the virus. After refusing to agree in writing to get permission from the local health department before leaving the house, even for an emergency, law enforcement was contacted. A few days later, officers arrived with court orders, including one for their young daughter, and ankle monitors. The couple, who was willing to self-quarantine, but not willing to sign the department’s document, is now pursuing legal action.

“Americans are shocked when they hear what happened. Here is a couple who was supposedly doing everything right and they got punished for it,” said Twila Brase, president and co-founder of CCHF. “They were treated like criminals because they refused to sign something that would put a bureaucratic barrier between them and their hospital.”

CCHF has long warned the possible dangers and privacy violations of contact tracing, where the government can collect sensitive data on an individual’s friends, family, associates, and colleagues and then use it to engage police power that restricts their freedom.

“Americans should think twice about testing. No one wants to find themselves under police-enforced house arrest. Contact tracing and the new “probable case” definition should give one pause. Don’t participate unless you’re prepared for the possibility of all your contacts being placed under house arrest even though they don’t have a confirmed case of COVID-19,” she continued.

“Government and ‘Big Tech’ make it sound easy: if you get tested, if you hand over your contact list, we will work together to end this pandemic. But rarely do they talk about the loss of privacy, the surveillance and the potential loss of personal freedom.” she concluded.

CCHF maintains a patient-centered, privacy-focused, free-market perspective. CCHF has worked in its home state of Minnesota and at the national level for more than 20 years to protect health care choices, individualized patient care, and medical and genetic privacy rights. In 2016, CCHF launched The Wedge of Health Freedom, an online directory of direct-pay practices (JointheWedge.com).

Twila Brase, RN, PHN has been named by Modern Healthcare as one of the “100 Most Powerful People in Health Care.” She is the host of the daily Health Freedom Minute radio program heard by over 5 million weekly listeners on more than 800 radio stations nationwide, and the author of the eight-time award-winning book, “Big Brother in the Exam Room: The Dangerous Truth About Electronic Health Records.