China sentences three persons to prison for spreading Covid

New Delhi, Jan 12 (IANS) Three persons in charge of a cargo handling company in the Chinese port city of Dalian, whose violations of epidemic prevention norms led to the spread of Covid-19 from cold-chain goods to the society in 2020, were given prison sentences varying from 39 to 57 months last Friday, Global Times reported.

The three defendants, two surnamed Fu and one surnamed Zhang, from the company, which is mainly engaged in the businesses of port cargo handling and human resource services, were sentenced to jail for the crime of violating the rules of prevention and treatment of infectious disease. Their company has been fined 800,000 yuan ($125,478).

Since four people hired by the company were identified as asymptomatic on December 5, 2020, a total of 83 confirmed and asymptomatic infections were reported in the flare-up caused by the company’s irregular operations in cargo handling.

In mid-November 2020, a foreign cargo ship carrying imported cold-chain goods docked at Dalian port.

Between December 1 and 12, 2020, the defendant surnamed Zhang, who was appointed by one the defendants surnamed Fu, the actual controller of the company, to hire workers to handle imported cold-chain goods on the foreign cargo ship. Zhang also supervised the onsite operation.

Due to a series of non-standard operations that violated the regulations on epidemic prevention and control, the virus imported via the cold-chain goods spread to the society, the report said.

The violations included the failure to implement whole-process standard protection. Zhang neglected his supervision over operating personnel who did not wear masks according to requirements and ate meals in contaminated protective garments.

–IANS

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