(Yicai Global) Sept. 2 -- A villager in China’s southwestern province of Sichuan, who visited Wuhan where the Covid-19 outbreak first started and brought the virus back with him, has been sentenced to two years in prison for deliberately flouting lockdown and causing serious consequences to his fellow villagers and his hometown.

A local court found Guo guilty of obstructing the prevention and control of infectious diseases and sentenced him to two years in prison, the China Youth Daily reported today.

Guo, from Huangxu town, Deyang city, returned from a visit to Wuhan on Jan. 22, a day before China introduced lockdown in Wuhan and other cities in central Hubei province in an attempt to prevent the novel coronavirus outbreak from spreading.

On Jan. 24, Guo went to a local health agency to have his temperature taken. He was instructed by the village head to stay home and not to go out yet he defied these orders to play mahjong, a tile-based game of strategy, with his pals in the village hall the next day. On Jan. 26, he developed fever and cough and was diagnosed with Covid-19.

Two of his fellow players, surnamed Lai and Zhu, caught the virus from him. More than 120 villagers who he came into close contact with were forced to go into mandatory quarantine and Huangxu village plus one other village had to completely seal themselves off.

Guo was the carrier of the virus into the locality, while Lai and Zhu were second-generation carriers of the disease, according to a report from the Deyang Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Editor: Kim Taylor