Police officers in the Austrian capital of Vienna were the victims of three spitting attacks in a single day, with one of the criminals testing positive for the Chinese coronavirus.
All the attacks took place on Wednesday, with the first at a supermarket in the 13th district of Hietzing. A 24-year-old foreigner spat at officers while they arrested him for shoplifting, with the assailant claiming to have not only coronavirus but also hepatitis and AIDS.
The second incident occurred in Floridsdorf and involved another foreigner who had damaged several vehicles before officers arrived on the scene at 11:20 pm. Police detained the man who spat at officers while resisting arrest and shouting “Corona! Corona!” at them, Kronen Zeitung reports.
Ten minutes after the second incident, a drunk 30-year-old with Austrian citizenship, who had tested positive for the Wuhan virus several days prior, became violent at a local hospital and tried to spit on both police and hospital security staff as they tried to subdue him.
Spitting attacks during the coronavirus pandemic have been reported in multiple countries in recent weeks.
In France, a woman was jailed for seven months for spitting on officers in the commune of Longjumeau. She shouted racial abuse at officers during the attack, calling them “dirty whites”, and stating “I have the coronavirus, you’re all going to die.”
France has isolated over 10,000 police officers due to the virus, according to a police union.
The United Kingdom also vowed harsh measures against anyone who spits or coughs at others during the crisis following several spitting and coughing attacks on medical personnel and police officers.
In Sweden, meanwhile, a pair of YouTubers deleted a video of themselves coughing on locals they had posted late last month as an internet “prank”.
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