While the death rate for COVID-19 isn’t as high as some potential pandemics we’ve looked at in the past, it’s bad enough. Tens of thousands of people have died from the deadly disease and Lord only knows how many more will perish from it. It’s not something to be taken lightly.

However, a couple of Canadian crooks who were showing symptoms of the disease decided to cross the line while being arrested for breaking and entering.

Two people are facing charges after they each allegedly coughed on a police officer in separate incidents in Mayerthorpe.

Mayerthorpe RCMP responded a complaint of an attempted break-and-enter and mischief around 7 a.m. on Saturday morning in the area of 46 Avenue and 49 Street in Mayerthorpe.

Officers found the suspect, who was exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19. As they were arresting him, police say he purposely coughed in the officer’s face.

…

While he was in hospital, he was visited by a woman, who allegedly became disruptive and had to be escorted out of the hospital. Police said she also purposely coughed on one of the officers.

A short time later, police said she was found breaking into vehicles in the hospital parking lot.

The woman was arrested, and police said she did significant damage to the inside of the police car.

This woman also allegedly coughed on the officers and showed symptoms of COVID-19.

Look, I get that a lot of people are viewing this disease as a big nothing. They’re young, they’re healthy, they see it as a bad case of the flu. Honestly, that’s their right and I can’t change their minds. Telling them that the state of Georgia had 44 people die from the flu during the 2018-2019 flu season and my county has lost 72 to COVID-19 so far won’t change their minds either.

I get that.

But not everyone is young, healthy, and able to withstand this disease. It hits some people particularly hard, hard enough to kill them.

By coughing on these officers, particularly if they suspected they had COVID-19, these two have essentially engaged in bioterrorism. They’re using the threat of a deadly disease to either get what they want or to punish the police for doing their job.

It should be noted that neither of these two is accused of being arrested and just minding their businesses during a pandemic. That’s happened, and it might be different. No, they both stand accused of breaking and entering. Those are crimes even if you’re not dealing with a nasty virus.

They then compound things by allegedly trying to spread a potentially deadly disease to the officers and, by extension, anyone the officers come in contact with. That includes their families.

I’m sorry, but I have no sympathy for this kind of thing.

For what it’s worth, I don’t know how Canada is treating cases like this. Hell, I don’t even know how most of the U.S. is treating cases like these–and we do have them–but I do know this is one of those “throw the book at them” kind of cases.