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Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2021

Could a known carrier be charged with a crime for intentionally spreading the coronavirus?

Lisa Freedland, Gigafact
yes

In March 2020, the Justice Department noted that as the coronavirus met the definition of a “biological agent,” a carrier who intentionally spread the virus could be prosecuted for terrorism-related crimes. Its memo noted reports of various coronavirus-related “schemes,” including threats to intentionally infect people.

In April, an 18-year-old in Carrollton, Texas, was charged with making a terrorist threat, a state violation, after she posted on social media from a Walmart after visiting a testing site. “If I'm going down, all you [expletive] are going down,” she said in a video. Her bond was set at $20,000.

State communicable-disease statutes, sometimes originally written to prosecute the intentional spread of sexually-transmitted diseases, have also been cited as potentially applicable to coronavirus cases.

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