Students in the Swiss city of Basel falsified positive COVID-19 results in a bid to skip school, resulting in the entire class being put in quarantine, and now disciplinary measures after the hoax was discovered.
Three students in Basel's Kirschgarten High School falsified SMS messages from Switzerland's COVID-19 contact tracing app, the Swiss newspaper Blick reported.
That forced about 25 classmates to be confined to their homes for some 10 days. Several teachers were also affected by the incident just before spring break in March.
"This is not just a childish prank, this is a serious incident," Simon Thiriet, a spokesman for Basel's education department, told Blick.
The school plans to pursue criminal charges for falsifying "health-relevant documents" though it does not plan to expel them.
Thiriet said that students are in a "difficult situation" due to the pandemic, but that doesn't excuse the stunt.


UN peacekeeper killed in southern Lebanon after projectile explosion
Iranian attack kills one in Kuwait, damages distillation plant
Iran accuses US of ground assault plans as Pakistan hosts regional talks
Fugitive accused of killing two Australian police officers shot dead
Netanyahu orders expansion of security buffer zone in southern Lebanon
Ten Kuwaiti troops injured in Iranian missile attack
Oman says no party has claimed responsibility for attacks on its territory
Anti-Trump 'No Kings' rallies pop up in thousands of US cities
