Death sought for disease spreaders; crisis seen to remain for 2 months
By B Izzak
KUWAIT: HH the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabahhas issued instructions to support Kuwaiti citizens financially to alleviatethe impact of the coronavirus on them, the National Assembly speaker saidyesterday.
Marzouq Al-Ghanem wrote on Twitter after attending a keyCabinet meeting chaired by the Amir that "this requires a number of decisionsto be issued” by the government.
In the meantime, the Assembly's health committee hasdemanded the death penalty for people who deliberately transmit contagiousdiseases like coronavirus to others that result in the death of at least oneperson.
Health Minister Sheikh Dr Basel Al-Sabah told the Cabinetmeeting yesterday that it is expected the coronavirus crisis will continueuntil it peaks after two months, and then will stabilize and begin to decline.
He said Kuwait has enough stocks of the medicines said tocure coronavirus cases.
The Assembly speaker said that the Amir stressed thatfighting the spread of the virus should go hand in hand in taking care of itseconomic consequences, urging concerned authorities to take the necessarymeasures to support the national economy and take speedy actions, especially toback small enterprises to prevent their collapse.
He said the Amir gave instructions that the governmentshould prepare an economic support plan related to the crisis within one week.
Ghanem said the Amir also issued directives regardingvarious other issues including the composition of the population and others.
The Amir also issued directives to pardon a number ofprisoners in accordance with specific parameters.
The Assembly will hold an emergency session today (Tuesday)to debate two draft laws related to the current situation, one relates tofiling of court cases and petitions while the other seeks to toughen penaltiesagainst health violators.
The government submitted the second draft law seeking toincrease the penalties for violators of health orders by amending an old lawissued some half a century ago. The government called for up to five years injail and up to KD 50,000 in fine for those who deliberately transmit contagiousdiseases to others.
But the Assembly's health committee proposed to make thepenalties much harsher.
It proposed that if infected people deliberately transmitcontagious disease to others, they will be jailed for between six months andfive years and fined between KD 20,000 and 50,000.
The penalty is doubled if the person infects more than threepeople and it becomes a life term or death if one of the infected people dies asa result.
Meanwhile, only one new coronavirus case was reportedyesterday, raising the number to 189.
As a partial nightly curfew entered its second day, policearrested a number of violators and handed them over to police stations forinterrogation.
The interior ministry has also created an online applicationfor those wishing to get a permit to break the curfew for something extremelyurgent. Police will arrest these people if their reason is found to be false.