He Broke Out of Quarantine for 8 Seconds, and Got a $3,550 Fine

One man left the house after an argument with his wife and walked 280 miles to cool off, breaching Italy’s national curfew.

Another man wandered outside his quarantine room in Taiwan for eight seconds and caught the attention of the authorities.

Still another drove 19 miles for a butter chicken curry during a strict lockdown and was apprehended by the Australian police.

All those actions ended up costing them thousands of dollars in penalties.

During the global pandemic, with entire cities locked down, travel heavily restricted and isolation fatigue setting in, thousands of people have been caught, fined or jailed for breaching coronavirus restrictions that have made once normal activities taboo.

After a heated argument with his wife, a man in Como, in Italy’s north, stepped outside his house for some air in November. The authorities found him a week later — after he had walked 280 miles south to the coastal town of Fano, breaching a national curfew.

After Prince Joachim of Belgium landed in Spain in late May, he was supposed to quarantine for 14 days and adhere to the country’s lockdown measures.

He did neither.

The prince, 28, the nephew of King Philippe, instead flew from Madrid to Córdoba to meet his girlfriend. A few days later, the couple went to a house party with more than two dozen people in attendance, local news media reported.

Then he tested positive for the coronavirus.

Spain, which had one of Europe’s strictest lockdowns, has fined more than one million people for flouting those measures. It did not let the Belgian prince off the hook, handing him a €10,400 fine (about $12,630) for breaching the restrictions.

“I would like to apologize for not having respected all the quarantine measures during my trip,” he said in a statement released publicly. “In these difficult moments, I did not mean to offend or disrespect anybody.”

Other public figures, including the singer Rita Ora, the rapper Cardi B, the reality TV star Kim Kardashian and the model Kendall Jenner, have drawn criticism for ill-conceived public forays during the pandemic, such as hosting large, mask-less gatherings.

“It’s quite hard to live life that different from the rest of the public and not to start to feel like the rules don’t apply to you,” said Dr. Kecmanovic, the psychology professor. But, she added, celebrities could use their power to encourage people to cooperate with the restrictions: “They really have power.”

In Melbourne, Australia — amid one of the longest and strictest lockdowns in the world — Noel Atkinson, a 48-year-old construction worker, had a yearning in July.

So he drove nearly 20 miles from his home to a downtown Indian restaurant for butter chicken curry. But he did not get the butter chicken. Instead, he got a police fine of $1,230, after they caught him contravening lockdown orders.

“I just had a craving for it,” Mr. Atkinson said in an interview. “My mum was born in Ambala,” he added of the city in the north of India. “It reminds me of home.”

As an essential worker, Mr. Atkinson had been exempt from most coronavirus restrictions during the day in the state of Victoria. He explained that since he traveled more than twice the distance for work, he had not considered the drive to the city lengthy or realized that he would be in breach of the rules.

“I have to risk my life to go to work, but I can’t risk my own life to get takeaway,” he said. “That’s a bit unfair.”

Before he was identified publicly, Australians tried to hunt down his identity. One restaurant offered to reimburse him for his trouble in curries.

Amit Tuteja, the owner of Desi Dhaba, the restaurant where Mr. Atkinson had planned to order his curry, said that while he did not condone Mr. Atkinson’s actions, “he made a mistake, but I’m pretty sure he just did not know.”

“He’s not the type who’s a freeloader; he’s a hard worker,” he added. “I said to him, ‘Mate, for the next year, you can have as much butter chicken to your heart’s content.’

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