VIENNA (AP) — An Austrian woman has been convicted of infecting and killing a neighbor with COVID-19 in 2021, local media reports, marking the second pandemic-related conviction in the past year. A judge on Thursday gave the 54-year-old woman a suspended four-month prison sentence and a fine of 800 euros ($886.75) for gross negligence resulting in death.
The victim, who was also a cancer patient, died of pneumonia caused by the coronavirus, according to the Austrian news agency APA. Virology reports matched the virus’s DNA with that of both the deceased woman and the 54-year-old woman, proving “almost 100%” that the defendant transmitted the virus, experts told the court.
“I personally feel bad for him, and I think this has probably happened hundreds of times,” the judge said Thursday, “but it is unfortunate that the experts have determined that he almost certainly contracted it from you.”
The judge handed down the sentence on Thursday, but the APA reported that the verdict has not yet been finalized. The names of the victim and defendant have not been made public in accordance with Austrian privacy regulations.
The woman was convicted of COVID-related charges last summer, APA reported. She received a three-month suspended prison sentence for knowingly endangering people through a contagious disease. However, she was acquitted of gross negligence resulting in death at the time.
This week, the judge heard statements from the family of the deceased woman, who said that the neighbours had come into contact on the stairs on December 21, 2001. The defendant would have known by then that he had COVID-19. However, he denied visiting her, saying that he was too sick to get out of bed that day. He also said that he thought he had bronchitis, which he gets every year.
However, the female doctor told police the defendant had tested positive in a rapid test and, upon receiving the results, said he “definitely had no intention of locking himself up”.
