Beijing has approved the arrest of a woman who infamously concealed her coronavirus symptoms to fly to China back in March, endangering the health of fellow travelers in the process.
The flight
37-year-old Jie Li developed Covid-19 symptoms while living in Massachusetts. Less than two weeks later, she hopped on a flight from Los Angeles to Beijing with her family.
Before getting on the plane, Li took medicine in order to keep her fever down. She did not inform flight attendants about her symptoms until they were about to land.
Upon arrival, she was put into quarantine at a hospital and 60 close contacts on that flight were put under observation. Three days later, her husband tested positive for the virus.
Li initially claimed that she was forced to flee the US because she couldn’t get a Covid-19 test there. However, local news outlets in Massachusetts reported that she had, in fact, been tested, but decided to split before the results came back.
The fallout
A Chinese citizen who had lived in the US for years, Li was fired from her job at Biogen after news of what she did broke on both sides of the Pacific Ocean. Biogen said that her behavior had been “inconsistent with company values.”
In more bad news for Li, Beijing’s people’s procuratorate announced on Tuesday that it had approved her arrest for “obstructing the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases.”
According to Chinese law, she could face up to three years in prison or even seven years imprisonment if her obstruction resulted in “serious consequences.”
