Not enough credit is given to all the healthcare workers who are working themselves to the ground during this awful coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, there have been several reported cases of healthcare workers being assaulted or even coughed on for simply doing their job.
In response to this awful behaviour, the federal government has issued a warning to those purposely trying to spread coronavirus COVID-19 around to healthcare workers that they’ll cop far more than a big fine.
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Speaking at a press conference, Health Minister Greg Hunt stated that anyone intending to spread coronavirus to healthcare workers could face some serious penalties, including jail time.
And it’s not just a few weeks or months of jail either as Hunt, referring to legal advice from the Attorney-General’s department, says purposely spreading coronavirus COVID-19 could result in a maximum penalty of life imprisonment as it is an offence under each state and territory’s criminal law.
“The most serious of these offences may carry maximum penalties up to imprisonment for life, if somebody was to take a step which led to the death of a healthcare worker, if that were a deliberate transmission.
“In addition, those same state and territory criminal laws also make it an offence to cause someone else to fear that they are having transmitted to them the virus, for example by coughing on them.”
Hunt says two people in the ACT have already been charged for “precisely this type of behaviour” so now’s as good of a time as any to tell everyone in Australia who are thinking of spreading coronavirus around:
One has to wonder what sort of twisted logic goes through the heads of those ungrateful folk whose first instinct upon seeing a healthcare worker is to cough on them.
Significant jail time for purposely spreading coronavirus may seem a bit harsh, but considering the penalties you can cop for just breaking lockdown rules and the sheer dickhead-ness of this crime, life imprisonment for COVID-19 spreaders seems about right.
Look, for all the stuff-ups that have happened, we’re all in this together until the numbers get to manageable levels. There’s no need to be dicks to one another, especially to all those hard-working healthcare workers out there.
People need to start taking this coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic seriously and it’s unfortunate that the government has had to threaten idiots with fines, jail time, and now life imprisonment to get the message across. One thing’s for sure, Australia definitely needs to take a leaf out of New Zealand’s book.
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