People’s Daily Health Client, compiled by Sun Baoguang
The February 24 report of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention Weekly (English) revealed details of the first Omicron variant infection in Beijing that may have been caused by international mailing of documents condition. The report analyzes the infection of a woman who was diagnosed in Beijing on January 15 this year and her 5 close contacts, and found that 6 of them were infected with the Omicron variant.
4 days from dispatch to receipt, the outer surface of the packaging document was sterilized
In the analysis of the infection route, it was found that the woman had been living and working in Haidian District, Beijing, with no history of travel outside Beijing, and no close contact with local or imported high-risk groups. Just because of work needs, occasionally send and receive international mail from time to time. The case received a document by international mail on January 11 (2 days before the onset of illness), which was sent from abroad on January 7, and was sterilized from the outer surface of the packaged document upon arrival in Beijing.
Postal workers are disinfecting all mail imported from abroad, according to Beijing Post
The staff then sampled the package and tested positive for 12 of 22 samples. Rapid site mutation testing showed that all 12 positive samples carried the Q498R mutation, presumed to be infected Omicron variant. The virus was significantly different from the local cluster in China during the same period, located near a partial cluster of strains collected in North America and Southeast Asia in mid-December.
This is the first local cluster outbreak in Beijing caused by the Omicron mutation. The Omicron variant was first reported on November 9, 2021, and as of February 1, 2022, the variant has been found in more than 170 countries and has become the dominant strain globally.
Omicron appears “extremely long standby”, assessing virus survival rate needs to consider season and region
It is worth noting that the document was sent from abroad on January 7th, and the confirmed case received the mail on the 11th, with an interval of 4 days, that is, 96 hours. Why does the virus survive for such a long time? long? Previous studies investigating the survival rate of the virus under various conditions have shown that the new coronavirus can only survive on printed paper and tissue paper for 3 hours; on treated smooth paper (such as banknotes), it can survive for 4 days.
Generally speaking, the stability of the new coronavirus on paper is not as good as that on plastic and stainless steel, but this time the virus has “extra-long standby”, the researchers reminded that in the evaluation Temperature should not be ignored when viral survival rates. Winter and low temperatures in some high-latitude countries may lead to prolonged virus survival and should be considered an important factor in this cluster. Therefore, in certain seasons and regions in China, the monitoring and disinfection of imported express goods is particularly important.