Coronavirus positive Google employee's infected wife faces jail for fleeing quarantine
LUCKNOW: A honeymoon in Italy with her Google employee husband has handed newly married 25-year-old a host of troubles.
Not only did she test positive for the coronavirus on Friday, but now she also faces possible legal proceedings as she defied the health emergency protocol in the country.
The woman, after her return from Italy, was placed under quarantine in Bengaluru after her husband showed symptoms of COVID-19. But defying the health emergency protocol, she escaped on March 8. She flew to New Delhi and then took a train to Agra to be with her parents.
On being alerted about her presence in Agra, the district health authorities approached her family but faced stiff resistance when they tried to move them into isolation and get their samples for virus testing.
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According to Agra district authorities, the nine-member family could only be moved to the isolation ward at the SN Medical college after the intervention of District Magistrate PN Singh and the cops.
The woman had gotten married to the Google employee in early February, sources said. They went to Italy for their honeymoon and visited Greece and France before returning to Mumbai on February 27.
The couple then flew down to Bengaluru. On March 7, the man started showing COVID-19 symptoms and later tested positive. Consequently, the couple was placed in isolation.
The Agra district administration is now contemplating taking legal action against the woman and her family for misleading them and violating the health emergency protocol.
Railway authorities in the city, meanwhile, have been asked to take action against the woman’s father, a senior section engineer with them.
Sources said an FIR may soon be registered against the woman under Section 269 of IPC which deals with acts of negligence and carries a punishment of six months and fine.
Chief Medical Officer MK Vats said initially the woman's parents refused to cooperate with the medical team and lied that she had returned to her husband in Bengaluru.
“But after the intervention of DM PN Singh, all nine members of the family were taken to the district hospital for screening. Subsequently, the woman was isolated at the SN Medical College and the rest quarantined at their house," they said.