Man dies after going to bar to spread coronavirus
A man who said he wanted to “scatter” the coronavirus after testing positive earlier this month has died from the disease.
The 57-year-old man from Japan was diagnosed with the coronavirus on March 4 and ignored advice to stay at home from health officials and instead went out drinking Gamagori, a city in Aichi Prefecture, according to Kyodo News.
Local authorities confirmed the man’s death, saying he died in a hospital in central Japan on Wednesday.
Kyodo News reported the man developed pneumonia after contracting the virus and he was also suffering from cancer.
On March 4 (local time) the unidentified man tested positive for the coronavirus and told his family he was going to go out and “scatter the virus” before heading out to a izakaya pub and hostess bar, according to Reuters.
At one of the venues the man went he sung karaoke and put his arm around a female employee, according to Kyodo News.
At both establishments the man went to he eventually told staff he had tested positive for COVID-19, prompting a staff member at one of the bars to contact a local health authority, South China Morning Post reported.
Before authorities could get to the scene, the man had already left in a taxi.
The following day the man was hospitalised and on March 13 a woman who worked at one of the bars tested positive for the virus.
Reports of the unidentified man’s night out on the town angered people online according to the South China Morning Post.
“Employees have had their livelihoods snatched away. This is nothing but terrorism. I want him to be severely punished,” the owner of the karaoke bar reportedly said.
According to Reuters, an Aichi official said “in principle” all people who return a positive test for the virus are hospitalised, unless there are no beds available, in that case they are asked to stay at home.
Aichi's 125 cases represent the second-highest number among Japan's 47 prefectures, according to public broadcaster NHK, as it has been hit hard by a cluster of cases linked to an elderly day care facility in the capital, Nagoya.
As of Wednesday morning, Japan had 29 deaths and 868 coronavirus cases, excluding those from a cruise ship that was quarantined near Tokyo last month and returnees on chartered flights from China, NHK's tally shows.
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