Photo: VCG

A man was sentenced to two years in prison for concealing his COVID-19 infection after returning from Vietnam which led to the quarantine of 488 people, according to a court in South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. 

When the man, surnamed Cao, returned to China in April, he lied in his health declaration at the port and concealed that there were multiple confirmed cases in the hotel where he stayed in Vietnam and that he had COVID-19 symptoms like fever. He also met his friends while in quarantine which violated anti-epidemic rules, the public prosecution agent said. 

His false declaration had led to the quarantine and extension of medical observation of 459 people who were in the same transportation and hotels with him. The incident generated a direct economic loss of 645,862 yuan. Meanwhile, it also led to the home quarantine of 29 on-site staff of the Youyi Customs Port in Guangxi for 14 days, which seriously affected the customs' supervision of the port.

Pingxiang city's People's Court believe that Cao violated the border health and quarantine regulations and when he was aware of being a suspect of the epidemic, he did not truthfully fill in the health declaration card but chose to conceal his illness. This caused a serious risk of the spread of the epidemic. 

His behaviors constitute a crime of obstructing frontier health and quarantine in violation of the provisions of Article 332 of the Criminal Law. He was sentenced to two years in prison, suspended for three years, and fined 200,000 yuan ($31,369). 

Global Times