Around 2,000 charged over coronavirus-related offenses

A total of 1,919 people have been taken to court by prosecutors for alleged offenses related to the novel coronavirus pneumonia outbreak as of Thursday, according to China's top procuratorate.

Some of the accused are charged with disturbing prevention of infectious diseases or producing or selling fake epidemic-related goods, while some face criminal charges for falsifying information about the outbreak or illegal consumption of wild animals, said a statement issued by the Supreme People's Procuratorate on its website late Thursday.

It said such timely prosecution was to implement the central leadership's requirement on preventing the COVID-19 as well as to play the procuratorial role in punishing offenders who took advantage of the outbreak to disturb medical care, market, epidemic control and social order.

Last week, considering the rising risk of imported cases of the virus, Zhang Jun, prosecutor-general of the SPP, has ordered all prosecutors not to relax their epidemic control work, attach more importance to offenses related to the imported infections and initiate prosecutions in a timely manner.