Afia Ohemeng
An Italian man is facing up to 12 years in prison after he hid his coronavirus symptoms in order to get a rhinoplasty, infecting multiple doctors and nurses.
According to the Italian news agency, La Repubblica, a prosecutor officially opened a case against the man for an “aggravated culpable epidemic.”
The case stems from an incident that occurred last week at the Parini Hospital in Aosta, a region in northwest Italy. The man went to the hospital for an ordinary nose operation, but just before he was placed in the operating room the anesthesiologist noticed a rise in his body temperature.
Shortly after, the man was tested and was determined to be infected with COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus that has run rampant in Italy. He was then discharged and ordered to self-quarantine at home, however, the newspaper said the man already infected the anesthesiologist, nurse and the doctor.
According to La Repubblica, the man was working in a resort in Aosta, where he came in contact with a number of tourists from Lombardi, a coronavirus epicenter in Italy. While working at the resort, he experienced coronavirus symptoms, including a mild cough, but feared that reporting the symptoms to health officials would force his rhinoplasty to be postponed.
While speaking with La Repubblica, Riccardo Brachet Contul, the regional secretary of the local hospital, Valle d’Aosta, explained why it is so important for all medical workers to avoid contracting the coronavirus.
“It is necessary that we continue to monitor the health of medical workers, nurses and all health workers,” Contul told La Repubblica, translated by Google. “To allow us to adopt all the preventive measures that have been taken anyway and that will have to be implemented in the future to ensure that the Aosta hospital works.”
The Italian Government continues to enfoce the nationwide lockdown measures to control the coronavirus spread.
This incident comes as Italy has been severely affected by the novel coronavirus. Just a few days prior to the man infecting the health care workers, a doctor in the town of Busto Arsizio died from coronavirus.
The novel coronavirus originated in Wuhan, China, but has continued to spread across the globe, infecting over 194,000 people, according to a tracker provided by Johns Hopkins University. Outside of mainland China, Italy has become the country with the most cases. The European nation currently has 31,000 according to the tracker. Italy has also seen over 2,500 deaths, and in an effort to slow the increasing spread of the virus a countrywide lockdown has been implemented.
