Covid unemployment benefits

Location: Alabama

We’re currently in GA but when we lived in AL in 2020 my wife right after things were starting to open back up returned to work and immediately got COVID and was forced to quarantine for 2 weeks. We claimed unemployment benefits like we were supposed to but now the state says she owes that money back, I also was forced to quarantine and claimed benefits but I’ve never been asked to repay anything. After years of trying to sort it out and getting no response from anyone other than our yearly notice that she was “overpaid” we were finally able to get in contact with someone and their response was that we owe the money back because my wife wasn’t “unemployed and was unable to work due to illness” and that made her ineligible, and that it’s more a disability thing than unemployment.

It was our understanding that there were exceptions specifically made to unemployment for COVID during and for a time after the lockdown. A quick google search does say that individuals were eligible if they were diagnosed, quarantined or caring for someone sick. But I’m not sure and trying to figure out if we can/ should fight this. At this point if we’re in the right it’s more about the principle than the money.