Here are two young women that are probably the most hated people in Queensland right
now: On the right is 19-year-old Olivia Winnie Muranga – a cleaner at the now-closed Parklands
Christian College, and 21-year-old Diana Lasu on the left.
They allegedly travelled to Australia’s coronavirus capital, Melbourne, for a holiday
and had a party with 20 to 30 other individuals.
They then flew back to Queensland via Sydney, lied to the Queensland authorities where they
had been (possibly using fake names and contact details on their border declaration passes),
and then headed back into the Brisbane community on 21st July 2020 and wreaked havoc.
Ms Muranga continued to socialise in various parts of Brisbane and Ipswich.
She went to restaurants.
She went to cocktail bars.
She even went to work for a few days.
After feeling quite sick, she decided to get tested for COVID-19 on Monday 27th, but despite
this, she continued to go out.
She went to an African Grocery Shop at Woodridge in the south of Brisbane.
She went to the Grand Plaza shopping centre in Browns Plains.
And the very next day on Tuesday 28th, she got her coronavirus test result back, and
surprise surprise, it came back positive.
Of course it did.
Understandably, this little jaunt of hers has a caused a complete s**tstorm of a clusterf**k.
Sorry for the language, but I believe it is warranted in this case.
The authorities are madly in the process of contact tracing and getting everyone in the
area tested.
The police have fined the two women $4,000 each for lying to authorities about where
they’d been, but of course, $4,000 is nothing compared to the complete chaos that they have
caused.
There was actually a third woman, a 21-year-old, who travelled with them who has also been
fined, but she did not test positive.
All three individuals are currently in isolation at a Brisbane hospital.
To be fair to the young women, they are only teenagers or a bit older.
(Sorry, I don’t mean to denigrate all teenagers here, but I was once a teenager myself, and
I did some pretty stupid stuff — I didn’t cause the outbreak of a potentially deadly
virus — but I did some pretty stupid stuff nonetheless).
However, based on their actions, clearly their social lives came first.
Who gives a stuff about the community, right?
I don’t think anyone is accusing them of intentionally spreading coronavirus.
Their actions were careless and stupid, but that’s about the extent of it.
Anyway, hopefully they’ve realised now that their actions weren’t without their consequences.
In the name of peace and understanding, I’m willing to forgive them, but I wonder how
many other Queenslanders are willing to do the same.
I find it unusual that the powers that be were willing to release the identities of
these young women to the media (at least the two who tested positive).
Previously, I’ve found that in general, identities have been kept hidden in order
to prevent people from being publicly shamed and ostracised.
In this case though, perhaps the authorities have decided that the women’s actions warrant
a good old public shaming in order to deter others from doing the same.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk was understandably pissed off, “I’m absolutely furious that
this has happened.
These two people have gone to Victoria, have come back and have given misleading information
to authorities.”
The Queensland Police have launched a criminal investigation into how the young women evaded
Queensland’s strict border restrictions that require everyone to isolate at a hotel
if they have been to any coronavirus hot spots like Victoria.
Obviously, if anyone was going to work out how to evade strict border restrictions,
why not a pair of young people!
Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll commented, “I am very disappointed with them at this
stage.
They went to extraordinary lengths to be deceitful and deceptive and, quite frankly, criminal
in their behaviour, and it has put the community at risk.”
Apparently one of the women was not being very cooperative to begin with, but police
now say that all three women were now cooperating with authorities.
The trio will face the Brisbane Magistrates Court on September 28.
Among other things, they have been charged with fraud, which carries a maximum penalty
of five years imprisonment.
Personally, I doubt they’ll see any jail time.
I’m sure they’ll show remorse for their actions and will probably get out on a suspended
sentence or whatever.
This whole fiasco does teach us one important lesson.
Despite all of these new rules and restrictions, there will always be at least a handful of
people willing to break those rules.
These women proved that fact.
They didn’t care about the new rules.
They didn’t care about the border restrictions.
They were happy to lie on their declaration cards and there wasn’t a damn thing that
the police or the Premier could do about it.
Obviously these border declaration cards are only useful for honest people.
Unless the government make it completely illegal for Queenslanders to travel, well this is
going to be something that we’ll all just have to deal with.
It sucks, but it’s the reality.
If there’s anything positive that we can get from all of this (apart from a positive
test result), it’s that the young women have successfully taught us and identified
the weaknesses in Queensland’s border controls.
Thank you Ms Muranga and Lasu.
I assume you will be making a public apology in due course.
Hopefully in time, people will begin to forgive you, but most importantly, hopefully your
actions don’t result in the deaths of a lot of people.