Coronavirus led the terrifying era of cough raids

Belly Mujinga wasn’t worth the abuse, and certainly wasn’t dying. A ticket clerk working at Victoria Station in London was spit and coughed on March 22 by a man who claimed to have the coronavirus. Mujinga became ill in the coming days. She was admitted to the hospital and died of the coronavirus on April 5 at the age of 47. Her family believes the two facts are related, and the British Traffic Police are investigating her death and looking for a man who coughed and spitted at her – a colleague also caught the virus but survived. It was

The incident sheds light on the unpleasant truth: Our saliva and saliva droplets have been weaponized by a highly contagious, often deadly disease. In most cases, they are accidentally banished from us, but they can also be malicious acts aimed at intimidating, intimidating, or attacking others.
“Every point of coughing and sneezing is draining fluid from our nose and lungs,” says Paul Hunter, a health professor at the University of East Anglia. Generally, something in the lungs or nose stimulates, and the body wants to remove it. However, some people deliberately choose to spit or cough people as an insult. Doing so can spread the infection or virus. “It’s a bad thing without Covid-19 anyway, but it can be fatal,” says Hunter.

Ah Daily telegraph Investigation In the first month of the coronavirus outbreak, police in England and Wales each week addressed about 200 cases of vomiting and coughing police officers. Most of those incidents involved people who claimed to have the coronavirus before spiting. In Ireland, did the police cough, 64 times Between early April and early May. They hooded people who were arrested 47 times from saliva. And each case is terrifying in its nature.

Last weekend, 7 people aged 23-48 arrested After 40 people were allegedly coughing and spiting by police officers sent to Bolton’s house attending a birthday party. There were officers there to disband the party, but some participants fought. Seven were arrested for being intoxicated and disorderly, while those who spit, cough or sneeze on others were arrested for general assault or violence.

Professor Stuart McDonald, a criminal professor at Swansea University, explains: Contact is sufficient for battery crimes, and earlier law stipulates that contact is possible via liquid. You can think of it as a battery by placing the pint on someone. “Tsubaki was always a battery,” McDonald added. A new factor is coughing. “It looks like it’s setting a new ground to some extent, but this is consistent with how crime has been interpreted in the past.”

The law is rapidly catching up with the reality of coronaviruses. In the US, St. Louis, Missouri Consider bill It can be punished by spiting, coughing, or sneezing on a key worker for 90 days in jail and fined up to $ 500.

UK Secretary of the Interior Pretty Patel said he is considering strengthening existing legislation to punish people for general attacks and violence against emergency workers. In 2018, the maximum sentence for that crime doubled from 6 to 12 months, but Patel says it wants to double again because of potentially fatal consequences. Attacks on paramedics are also counted as perpetrated attacks, making crime more serious.

Malicious saliva and coughing are treated differently in England, Wales and Scotland. “In Scotland, spitting someone out, whether or not a virus is involved, is a crime-attack-in itself,” explains Fiona Reberick, a professor of criminal law and justice at Glasgow University. Scottish police can also impose reckless danger on someone who swallows a keyworker (or anyone else), Leverick said. Crime Doing something intentionally Exposure of individuals to significant risk of health or life, depending on which may lead to maximum life imprisonment Court level I will try.

Previously, it was used to prosecute people who put others at risk of disease, such as through HIV. However, no matter where in the world the British press campaigns against spies in Berymzinga, moving from reckless danger to more serious accusations like negligence is legally far more. It’s tricky.

“We need to prove that the attack-spitting-is the cause of death,” says Leverrick. The jury will have to be convinced that there is a direct line between the lawsuit and the outcome. “The main challenge is to prove that causal chain,” says McDonald’s.

However, there is a precedent for this. In April 2018, Darryl Rowe attempted to deliberately infect five men with HIV through unsuspecting sex and unsuccessfully infected at least five using the dating app Grindr, imprisoned for at least 12 years. it was done. The crime Rowe committed was a serious physical harm (GBH). Crime is essentially a creature equivalent to murder.Really serious physical harm ”, 1961. If the crime was a simple assault, the person’s knowledge of being infected with the coronavirus does not affect the sentence. However, McDonald’s says that conviction of serious physical harm requires intention. To cough someone who knows you have the virus.

Eliminating the same severe punishment as that given to Rowe is one possible way to stop the already-increasing increase in coronavirus exhalation. Some have already been burdened. Iain Lindsay (48 years old) from Inverness Was imprisoned earlier this week Coughing their faces and endangering police lives when taken to a police station after being arrested in another case. Lindsay, who is not infected with the coronavirus, has been sentenced to four months in prison. However, it is also important to proactively protect workers in the field, rather than trying to deter those who are severely punished. Currently, the exacerbated attacks are intended for emergency personnel only, and those attacking others by coughing or spitting can be arrested and punished with batteries.

In many supermarkets, checkout staff are fitted with plastic shields to prevent the transmission of viruses through the air. It needs: Survey by Usdaw Union Since the outbreak of the coronavirus, the average clerk has been shown to face assaults, intimidation, and abuse once a week. Nearly 200 people were physically attacked. Some were spit out for Trying to stop shoplifting, Or enforce limits on the number of specific items shoppers can purchase to prevent hoarding.

Aside from social distances of more than 2 meters, the public can do little to prevent attacks, but face masks only limit the spread of the virus.

“Sadly, chatting by vulgar individuals is nothing new to police officers,” said John Apter, head of the Police Federation in England and Wales. “But threatening to use it as a weapon to spread deadly viruses is a new downturn and must be met head-on by the criminal justice system. There must be consequences, and the consequences in prison. There must be.”

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