Beijing – As China’s blowout annual online shopping event, begins, the authorities have cautioned shoppers that parcels may be contaminated with the Covid-19 virus.
It was reported that three workers at a small company making children’s clothing tested positive for the virus
That discovery led Chinese authorities to test packages and monitor the personnel who had handled them.
Based in Hebei, a province surrounding Beijing, the company was ordered to halt its parcel delivery services to cities and a nearby town.
Around 300 packages were tested for the virus, all of which came back negative.
Another 16 parcels from the same company were tested after reaching a small county in Guangxi.
The local health commission announced that anyone who touched the parcels included in the “Covid-related mail chain” needed to be tested and monitored, reported Bloomberg.
And naturally, this simply had to happen on Singles Day, that is, Nov 11. Singles Day – 11.11 – has become the world’s biggest online shopping festival since it began life as the Alibaba Group’s platform as its signature online shopping day.
In 2020, sales reached 500 billion yuan (S$105 billion) from the event
Bloomberg reported that several people were forced to quarantine at home because their green code, which is used to track health status, switched to yellow after receiving parcels.
Chinese authorities advised people to sanitise packages, especially those coming from overseas or high-risk domestic areas.
Transmission of Covid-19 through packaging
In March 2020, the United States National Institutes of Health announced that the Covid-19 virus is stable for several hours to days in aerosols and on surfaces.
Scientists have observed that the virus was detectable in aerosols for up to three hours, up to four hours on copper, 24 hours on cardboard, and two to three days on plastic and stainless steel.
Although news of warehouse personnel contracting Covid-19 and coming into contact with parcels before delivery may cause alarm, there is much smaller chance of the virus transmitting through surface contact than through the air.
The risk of getting infected by the coronavirus from contact with a package is very low, but this does not mean IT IS Impossible, says infectious disease specialist Elliot Frank, MD, citing the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO).
“This is because the virus is generally thought to be spread most often by respiratory droplets that are transmitted by sneezing and coughing,” he explained.
Dr Frank advised parcel recipients to be aware of possible contamination and take preventive measures for protection./TISG
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