Asia News Desk!!! A 64-year-old Indian-origin man in Singapore has been sentenced to two weeks in jail for deliberately coughing on his co-workers while he was infected with Covid-19 in 2021. Tamilselvam Ramaiah, who worked as a sweeper, was booked on Monday in a case of violating COVID-19 norms for not wearing a mask outside his home, a media report said. According to a Channel News Asia report. Convicted.
After reporting for work on the morning of October 18, 2021, he told the Assistant Logistics Manager that he was feeling unwell, and was asked to undergo an antigen rapid test.After testing positive for COVID-19 , he was instructed to return home. But Tamilselvam went to the company’s logistics office to inform the assistant logistics manager about his COVID-19 test result.
Tamilselvam entered the office accompanied by a company driver, who was not aware of the positive test result. The logistics supervisor, who was aware that Tamilselvam was infected with Covid, asked the driver not to go near him. The supervisor asked him to enter the office. He was also asked to leave and made a gesture imitating being thrown out. Tamilselvam walked to the door, but after coughing twice, returned and came into the office with his mask on, the news report said.
He said that all his actions were captured in the closed-circuit television cameras installed in the office. The supervisor closed the office door, but Tamilselvam opened it. He pulled down the mask and coughed for the third time in the office before leaving. As Tamilselvam was leaving, he passed a window in the logistics office with a 56-year-old clerk, a kidney patient, on the other side of the glass.
However, after this incident none of them got infected with Corona virus. But the company’s assistant logistics manager lodged a police report on the incident. During the investigation, Tamilselvam said he had coughed on his co-workers as a “joke”. He said he did not take his positive result seriously and visited the polyclinic to confirm whether he was infected with COVID-19. Demanding three-four weeks of jail for Tamilselvam, Deputy Lok Prosecutor Shruti Boppana said the incident was “no laughing matter”. She said Tamilselvam disobeyed instructions to leave the premises and returned to deliberately cough on his colleagues at a time when COVID-19 cases were rising in Singapore. An increase was being seen.
