WHEN the coronavirus erupted into the global sphere from its reportedly original source in China, it seemed like a wrathful God sentencing a recalcitrant Mankind to Armageddon.
Single cases became tens, then hundreds, then thousands of victims, with no surcease in sight.

The deaths multiplied, with no respect for rank or status of persons, while governments with research capabilities and capacities went into emergency mode to find a cure for the deadly pandemic ravaging even developed nations.

This highly-contagious disease continues to spread and take lives because of the intransigence of persons to observe the COVID-119 protocols and take the requisite precautions.
Taking into consideration that the definition of murder is taking lives with intent, how does one who has a highly-contagious disease that is a certain killer, such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and the COVID-19 pandemic, which, knowingly and deliberately infects others who are unaware of their ailment rate in this equation?
While one could empathise and sympathise with someone who is ill, especially with a life-threatening disease, one cannot condone, and certainly one can scarcely forgive someone who deliberately infects another with a deadly disease.

Contracting certain diseases is, generally, in effect a potential death sentence, with lifestyle changes and proper medication with optimum care, later rather than sooner, but definitely one that heralds a contracted lifespan, with death imminent through unavoidable medical complications.  One can only agonise over the unnecessary loss of lives. However, there are umpteen cases, registered and unregistered, known and unknown, where innocent persons have been infected by persons whom they have trusted implicitly.  Marital partners, for instance, have in many instances engaged in extramarital relationships without considering the consequences of their lust then, knowing full well the danger they can bring to their marital bed, yet they engage in normal conjugal relationships with their spouses.

Sometimes, in macabre irony, the one who infected his or her partner is saved for years from getting full-blown AIDS, long after the partner dies; and many times the guilty party accuses the innocent one of infecting them. There are countless persons with such sad stories, with variations, but with the same outcome, all over the world.
Contagious diseases (such as the flu, colds, or strep throat) are spread from person to person in several ways. One way is through direct physical contact, like touching or kissing a person who has the infection. Another way is when an infectious microbe travels through the air after someone nearby sneezes or coughs.
Wikepedia reports that in many Anglophone countries, and in most of the states that have signed the European Convention of Human Rights, knowingly infecting others with HIV can lead to criminal prosecution.

In a 2004 survey of the latter group, the Global Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS found that at least one prosecution had occurred in about half of these countries, and that in Finland, Sweden and Slovakia, about 0.5 to one per cent of all people reported to be living with HIV/AIDS had been prosecuted for alleged intentional or “negligent” transmission of HIV.

In many developing countries, such as Thailand, where the HIV/AIDS pandemic has been much more serious, laws regarding criminalisation of intentional transmission have been either weak or non-existent.

From a global perspective, the U.S. and Canada account for the vast majority of reported prosecutions.
In Guyana, a controversial motion sought to amend laws in order to make persons criminally responsible for willfully infecting others with HIV, as well as to allow for pertinent information to be used by prosecution, if so required, and for hospitals, clinics and such agencies that need relevant information that could help in the treatment of an infected person. It is expected that new legislation will make imperative the results of tests and other vital information be legally required to release such information to any court that requests such information. The motion also sought to infuse a charge of attempted murder instituted against any individual found to have knowingly endangered the life of another.

Murder One is defined as the taking of the life of another human being with intent.  The unintentional loss of a life as a result of another’s actions can be deemed manslaughter, or Murder Two, by the institutions of the law.

Many lives are lost or compromised as a direct or indirect consequence of deliberate and intentional actions of carriers of infectious, life-threatening diseases, whose actions are just as effective as if they had put a gun to the heads of their victims and blown their brains out, which may have been a merciful death.  They are no lesser a criminal than a convicted killer, and they should be prosecuted as the murderers they are.