China has sentenced a man to prison for 18 months after he spent nearly a week in Europe during the coronavirus pandemic and then failed to report his journey to the police upon his return.
The 29-year-old, known by his surname Guo, refused to self-isolate and tried to hide his symptoms from the authority after developing fevers and a sore throat, according to public prosecutors.
Officers put him under forced quarantine after tracking his movements using the country’s mass surveillance system.
The criminal, known by his surname Guo, has been found guilty of impeding authorities’ efforts to control and prevent the coronavirus. He was handed an 18-month prison sentence today. The above photo shows passengers from abroad arriving at a Shanghai airport on March 29
Guo was classified as an imported case by the local officials.
More than 40 people have been put under medical observation after coming into close contact with Guo.
The case was reported by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate of China today through its official social media account.
According to a statement, Guo lives in the city of Zhengzhou in central China and was sent to Europe on a business trip from March 1 to March 7.
He arrived in Milan on March 2 via Beijing and Abu Dhabi before flying to Paris the next day.
He returned to Milan one day later and on March 6 flew back to Beijing, again via Abu Dhabi.
Beijing now views the coronavirus as a ‘foreign’ problem and has increased its efforts to screen ‘imported cases’. The picture shows a volunteer spraying disinfectant in Henan on April 3
Guo reached his hometown on March 7 after taking a high-speed train from the Chinese capital city.
Instead of carrying out self-isolation for 14 days, a mandatory requirement from the Chinese government on arrivals from abroad, Guo went back to work straight away.
The notice said he took the subway to work on March 8 and March 9 before experiencing high body temperatures and a sore throat on the night of March 9.
He walked to a pharmacy near his home to buy drugs and then took them at home.
His mother made a tonic with herbs for him to take after being informed of his illness.
Guo went to a pharmacy near his home to buy drugs after developing symptoms on March 9. The picture shows a woman wearing a face mask visiting a pharmacy, in Wuhan on March 30
The prosecutors claimed that on March 10, the local police officers discovered Guo’s recent journey abroad using ‘big data’.
The ‘big data’ technology, part of China’s 13th five-year plan, is backed by a national surveillance system featuring hundreds of millions of AI-powered street cameras.
It is said that when the police called Guo to confirm the trip, he refused to answer his phone. And when they called Guo’s mother, she claimed that her son had not been abroad.
Officers caught Guo after calling his mother again and asking her to inform him to meet them outside his building.
Chinese cities have rolled out strict health screening procedures at international airports for new arrivals from abroad. The picture shows workers donning protective suits check information of an inbound passenger at Shanghai Pudong International Airport on March 27
Guo was then taken to a quarantine centre, where he was diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
The police launched an investigation into Guo on suspicion of ‘impeding the control and prevention of infectious diseases’ on March 9.
He was put under house arrest on March 27 after finishing his quarantine and charged on March 30.
The Zhengzhou 27th District People’s Procuratorate today handed out an 18-month sentence to Guo.
With the number of new cases dropping to zero in China but soaring abroad, Beijing now views the coronavirus as a ‘foreign’ problem and has increased its efforts to screen ‘imported cases’ to prevent a second outbreak.
The United States now has the most coronavirus cases in the world, followed by Spain, Italy, Germany and China. Medical workers are seen moving a body from the sidewalk into a refrigerator truck outside Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York, on April 3
Worried oversea students have rushed to flee the coronavirus pandemic after schools across Europe closed campuses and moved classes online to contain the spread of the virus.
Major Chinese cities like Beijing and Shanghai, where travellers from overseas land, have set up the so-called ‘medical fortresses’ in their airports to give strict health screening to new arrivals. All of them must undergo 14-day isolation upon landing.
China has so far registered 870 cases of COVID-19 among people entering the country.
Official statistics show that more than a third of the imported cases in the Chinese capital of Beijing were detected among people arriving from Britain, followed by those coming from Spain and Italy.
More than 3,322 people have died of the deadly disease and over 81,620 have been infected in China.
The global count of confirmed cases has exceeded one million, with more than 53,000 deaths.
Massachusetts resident faces up to seven years in Chinese prison after ‘hiding her coronavirus symptoms’
A woman (not the one pictured) is facing criminal charges after flying from the US to China to receive coronavirus treatment. Pictured, travelers wearing face masks and protective jackets walk in an almost empty arrivals area at the Capital International Airport in Beijing on March 17
A former associate director of a US biotechnology company is facing up to seven years in prison in China after allegedly hiding her coronavirus symptoms and flying from Los Angeles to Beijing in hopes of receiving treatment.
The Chinese national, 37, gobbled down anti-fever medicine at LAX to suppress her high temperatures before boarding the 13-hour flight back to her homeland with her husband and son, Chinese authorities said.
The mother-of-one, named as Jie Li, worked for Biogen, a multinational firm at the centre of an outbreak of the coronavirus in Massachusetts.
Around 30 per cent of the confirmed cases in the state are believed to be linked to a conference held by the company in Boston in February.
Ms Li claimed to have been denied the coronavirus test three times by American doctors before resorting to the drastic measure last week, health officials in Beijing revealed.
She was diagnosed with the coronavirus hours after landing in Beijing last Friday, said the Beijing Center for Diseases Prevention and Control. Her husband, a 37-year-old university lecturer, tested positive on Monday.
Police are investigating her on suspicion of preventing the control of infectious diseases.
The criminal charge carries a maximum prison term of seven years if ‘the consequences are particularly serious’, according to the Chinese criminal law.