A woman told police she had Covid and threatened to cough and spit at them after being told she was being arrested for being a "s***bag".
Charlie Toner was arrested in the early hours of the morning in Gateshead but after being put in a police car, started kicking out.
Officers removed her and put her in leg restraints and called for a police van to take her into custody, on May 7 last year.
Ian Cook, prosecuting, told Newcastle Crown Court : "While waiting for the police van, the defendant made statements referring to having coronavirus and threatened to cough and spit at officers.
"As a result she was placed in a spit hood. She remained abusive."
As she was carried to the police van, she headbutted a female PC to the left side of her face.
After being put in the van, she banged her head against the cage and and made threats to the officers.
At the police station, she was removed from the van and the court heard she said: "I've got Covid-19, I tested positive for it. I'm going to spit, bite and cough in your face."
The officers said in victim statements they were left worried by Toner's claims and concerned that , if true, they could have become ill and passed it on to family members.
Toner, 21, from Chopwell, Gateshead, who has 40 previous convictions including two for assaulting police, pleaded guilty to two counts of assaulting an emergency worker - the headbutt on the basis it was reckless.
She was sentenced to eight months suspended for eight months.
Recorder Ben Nolan QC told her: "You have pleaded guilty to two offences of assaulting an emergency worker, which in an emergency, which this country is, becomes an extremely serious offence.
"When you assault an emergency worker in circumstances such as this and when you use Covid as, in effect, a weapon, by threatening to cough or spit at an officer, that becomes an extremely serious offence which merits imprisonment."
The judge said she "richly deserves" to go straight to prison but he decided to suspend the sentence as she had already served two months on remand and he thought sending her back "would probably do more harm than good".
Penny Hall, defending, said: "She had been the victim of an assault herself and she was then arrested and fully accepts her behaviour was inappropriate.
"She asked the officer why she was being arrested and was told 'because you're a s***bag'. That made her more agitated and upset.
"That perhaps explains why she went from being disruptive to aggressive."
Miss Hall said Toner suffered the death of her mother and then her partner and has ongoing mental health issues
