Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
China Medicine Transportation

China Claims First Omicron Case Arrived Through Foreign Mail (businessinsider.com) 143

Posted by BeauHD from the special-delivery dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Insider: Officials in Beijing are telling people to avoid international mail and to open their packages outdoors and with gloves, saying cases of the Omicron coronavirus variant could have spread through foreign mail. Experts have repeatedly said that there is little risk of getting the coronavirus from mail. There is no indication that this has changed with the Omicron variant, though it is more infectious. But Robin Brant, the BBC's China correspondent, tweeted on Monday that Beijing was telling residents not to order goods from abroad, and to open packages outside with gloves and a mask on. The South China Morning Post also reported on Monday that Beijing's center for disease control and prevention said that people should order as little as possible from abroad, and that people should wear gloves and masks when opening any mail from high-risk countries. It comes as the center said the first recorded case of the Omicron variant in Beijing could have entered via mail. Officials in Beijing say the man who was infected was sent mail from Canada on January 7. They claim to have detected the Omicron variant on the letter.

Canada's post office notes that the risk of the coronavirus spreading via mail is low as it doesn't live long on surfaces.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

China Claims First Omicron Case Arrived Through Foreign Mail More

China Claims First Omicron Case Arrived Through Foreign Mail

Comments Filter:

  • Must have been marked return to sender (Score:5, Funny)

    by JoeyRox ( 2711699 ) on Monday January 17, 2022 @07:08PM (#62182533)
    Here's your virus back, more contagious than your recipe but neutered a bit.
    • "Soory 'bout that contagious part, eh?"

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      According to Chinese officials, virus started in US in Fort Detrick.

    • So, a Chinese person with Omicron reads a letter from Canada. Later, that letter is found to have Omicron traces. So he got if from Canada?

      Are these the same investigators that are telling us where the virus originated?

      • So, a Chinese person with Omicron reads a letter from Canada. Later, that letter is found to have Omicron traces. So he got if from Canada?

        they said:

        "we do not rule out the possibility that the person was infected through contacting an object from overseas,"

        Sorry to RTFA, but I'm afraid I did. It's nowhere near the sensationalist title. If we were talking about some random infection on one of the main places where Omicron is spreading this wouldn't make sense, however in this case we're talking about a single person in an area otherwise without disease. That makes weird and wonderful methods of transmission more something to worry about. It d

    • They could make a PSA with Xinnie the Pooh.

      He'll run from the letter, while gnawing on a bat, as piglet franticly tries to mop the blood from his fur . . .

  • Protectionism? (Score:5, Informative)

    by enriquevagu ( 1026480 ) on Monday January 17, 2022 @07:13PM (#62182541)

    Coronavirus had been studied to only survive for a day on cardboard [nejm.org], so it is highly unlikely that the reason is the international mail itself (note also that nowadays we clearly agree on the virus being airborne). Either the postmen that were involved had something to do, or maybe China is using this case to promote the local economy, in a form of coercive proteccionism.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tyr07 ( 8900565 )

      Oh yeah, it's because they were blamed at first for releasing it into the world. "It came from China first" no no no no no no...

      Etc. etc.

      So this is just more face saving to push blame on to others "Ohhh China was infected from other countries, other countries bad and spreading coronoa to everyone"
      It's just more to deflect from their responsibility on what happened.

      • That stragegy has worked out for them. I've got a Chinese friend in Malaysia who STILL thinks COVID was created at a US military base and dispersed later in China. Her proof are a bunch of nuts on Youtube who spend most of their time writing "Hey, I'm a foreign guy living in China, and the West sucks!" videos.

    • I'd read about the short survival time multiple sources, but have also seen something which contradicts it: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.go... [nih.gov]

      • Re: Protectionism? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Frobnicator ( 565869 ) on Monday January 17, 2022 @08:30PM (#62182751) Journal

        The study touches it if you read it. Basically all the factors like material composition, exposure to light, temperature, humidity and moisture, presence or absence of mucus, the sizes of the globs, and more are factors. Same as every other disease.

        That one was a survey including many different coronaviruses, and the longest lived under ideal conditions for a variety that is the common cold was 28 days. Emergent research on SARS-CoV-2 shows it is much shorter on surfaces, even under ideal conditions like being in a big ball of phlegm.

        It is extremely improbable, but not impossible, that transmission came through the post as described.

    • Re:Protectionism? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by hey! ( 33014 ) on Monday January 17, 2022 @08:01PM (#62182675) Homepage Journal

      You're really giving them too much credit. This is what you get in a society without a free and independent press; all "truths" are judged against the yardstick of political expediency.

      The truth is inconvenient; nobody can stop the spread of this virus without stopping the movement of people completely, which is impossible in a modern economy except for brief periods. However the lie is very convenient; it fits in with the party initiative to turn the people away from foreign influences (e.g., by shutting down foreign language instruction schools).

    • Well... I suppose it's conceivable mail could get from Vietnam into China in 24 hours.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by joe_frisch ( 1366229 )
      China probably receives billions of mail items from the west over a few weeks. So a very improbably set of circumstances could allow the virus to survive - the right humidity, temperature etc during transit. Its also possible Omicron is more resistant - I think the earlier tests were done on other variants.

      I'm NOT saying it happened! Just that I don't think this rules it out
      • Every piece of mail ever sent has been covered with viri and bacteria, just like virtually everything else.

        How the hell can the CCP know where the bugs on any piece of mail originated?

        • Home to the Wuhan Institute of Virology !

          Internationally, garbage statements like this just weaken China's already low credibility. If they said tomorrow that they had found a natural source we would all be very suspicious of the claim. Tell one lie, and people stop believing you.

          But domestically, with no free press, they probably help to sure up the government. "The whole world is against China".

        • How the hell can the CCP know where the bugs on any piece of mail originated?

          Sequence the virus and then see where the nearest other sequence is in the world.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        The Chinese government does tend to over-react to these kinds of things, and to be fair it has worked well for them. Locking down whole cities and mass testing everyone is extreme, but it also means they have been able to avoid long term lockdowns and high numbers of infections.

        In other words they are likely to err on the side of caution.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      More likely, the CCP needs a scapegoat to blame for omicron. And as an ancillary benefit, they get to cast suspicion on foreign ideas leaking in through the mail by linking them with a virus. And the CCP really does view foreign ideas as viruses.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      The CCP will blame anything bad on outside interference. They feel it reflects on their own mythic incompetence.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by c ( 8461 )

      Either the postmen that were involved had something to do, or maybe China is using this case to promote the local economy, in a form of coercive proteccionism.

      I'd imagine it's theatre. Omicron got into China in the usual fashion (someone travelling), sneaking past all the best security and health protocols they have, and is probably now spreading beyond containment. Now, either they admit that they fucked up and aren't perfect, or they point the finger elsewhere. Finger pointing it is.

  • More bullshit out of Beijing (Score:5, Informative)

    by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Monday January 17, 2022 @07:18PM (#62182561)

    A recent, non-peer reviewed study suggests covid loses infectious capabilities after 20 minutes [businessinsider.com] when exposed to the air. Within a few seconds of being released into the air, covid loses 50 - 60 percent of its infectivity [thehill.com], and within two minutes, it drops another 90%.

    While these studies were done in lab settings, they mirror what we see in real life. When groups of people gather in close quarters, infections spread resulting in deaths [yahoo.com]. In fact, one of the first recorded group deaths [cnn.com] came about because people were in close proximity to one another and spewing their breaths into the air.

    "During the entire rehearsal, no one sneezed, no one coughed, no one there appeared to be sick in any way," Carolynn Comstock told KIRO.

    "So now we know, oh hm, maybe it's transmitted not just by droplets and sneezes or coughs; maybe it's transmitted just by people talking, just by people being around each other," Comstock said. "And then of course, if you're singing there's more volume to the talking, deep breathing and more volume."

    Thus, there is no way China can claim omicron came from foreign mail without lying. It wouldn't last the duration of the trip, even by jet.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Krishnoid ( 984597 )
      Accusing them of lying? Slander, I say! Next thing you'll say is that their chemical safety component certifications [reddit.com] are suspect!

    • Sure you've got science on your side. But I want to wait to see what narrative the fake new media wants me to believe.

    • Mostly, the infection rate was not what you'd expect from an aerosol spread virus. Originally it had R(0) of 2 or 3 - aerosol spread infections are much more transmissible. It just turned out that the original SARS-Cov2 was just really bad at infecting people. Omicron has fixed that, and it has the high infection rates we'd expect.

    • You get your science news from business insider? As an active stock trader I wouldn't even get business news there!

      • Let's be fair, it's better than Harvard Review.

        • No, that's not fair at all. Business Insider consistently prints supply-sider lies, and mixes editorializing with claimed facts.

          Harvard Review is a student-led publication that focuses on editorial content, and is honest about the difference between editorializing and reporting fact.

          You just can't get past, "Hurr, durr, I disagree with that opinion, hurr durr, must not be facty!"

      • You don't have to trust Business Insider - the Business Insider article links to the actual study.

        Of course, the study is not yet peer reviewed...

        • Yeah, but it doesn't support the claims he made.

          I agree that China is full of shit on this, but a study on the virus activity levels after 20 minutes, or any study focusing on the half-life, can't establish the long-term risk. Biological contaminant risk does not cleanly follow a half-life, half-life, half-life progression the way radioactive degradation or other chemical process would. And indeed the study talks about a V-shaped graph.

          Also he misrepresented the study results by cherry-picking quotes from t

    • 90% is not 100%. Western science may be satisfied with only some thousands of live viruses surviving the mail, masks, vaccines, etc., but it's not enough in China.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I saw a study, I think it was peer reviewed but I have lost the link now, where they found that people were infected in a hospital because two doors were simultaneously open for 3 seconds and there was a breeze between the rooms. They used CCTV of the area to confirm it.

      While the probability might be low, if you roll the dice enough times you will eventually get unlucky.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jbengt ( 874751 )

        I saw a study, I think it was peer reviewed but I have lost the link now, where they found that people were infected in a hospital because two doors were simultaneously open for 3 seconds and there was a breeze between the rooms.

        Serious isolation rooms have a vestibule with a lot of ventilation and a door at each end. You are not supposed to be able to open both doors at once, similar to a darkroom or a prison entrance. Most hospital ICUs do not have such stringent isolation measures, but still, it's no

  • I'm curious (Score:5, Funny)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Monday January 17, 2022 @07:19PM (#62182565)

    If you're caught on camera opening mail without a mask and gloves - will it affect your reputation score?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by WoOS ( 28173 )

      The more intersting question is: Will Big Brother be able to find out by cross-referencing that you got mail from abroad but have NOT been seen on the outside opening it?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by waspleg ( 316038 )

      They literally have people sitting around operating drones to fly around with speakers on them to scream at you to comply with various pedantic bullshit and if you don't the police come. I've seen video but it's been awhile and I couldn't find it, but here you go, see how they do "quarantine". [youtube.com]

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by suss ( 158993 )

      You'd probably have a surprise visit from the organ reclaimation van, which will disappear your disobeying parts all over the country...

  • Market protections in a bad economy (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 17, 2022 @07:22PM (#62182569)
    Mail from abroad takes longer to deliver and has a greater chance for the virus to die. If their BS logic of getting infected via mail is correct (which it isn't), then domestic mail should be the greatest threat. This is simply a way of trying to reduce imports from other countries and get people to buy domestic.

  • No order from abroad (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Sebby ( 238625 ) on Monday January 17, 2022 @07:24PM (#62182573)

    Beijing was telling residents not to order goods from abroad

    Fine. I guess I won't put in that AliExpress order in then.

  • Great Strategy (Score:3, Insightful)

    by lilTimmy ( 6807660 ) on Monday January 17, 2022 @07:33PM (#62182595)
    Haha, seems like a great way to keep money from going to foreign companies. No, don't buy anything from Amazon, it'll kill you.

    • Amazon China ships mostly goods from China to China. There's nothing foreign involved except the transfer for money to an American company.

      Hell Amazon USA shims mostly good from China too. It sounds like a great strategy to avoid using foreign commerce and boost the local economy for every country except China, given that China is typically the source of said commerce.

    • Came to say this, sounds like a "Buy American" way of improving there internal economy.

  • Have you ever tried sending back a package from aliexpress? It's just not possible. Mail is one direction from China.

    • My dad made the mistake of ordering a battery pack for his Roomba off Wish once. It was supposed to arrive in one month. After 45 days he called wish to complain, but couldn't get a human and couldn't remember his order number. Eventually he just complained to the credit card company, got a refund, and went somewhere else. Two months later ( So, something like 3.5 months total), the batteries arrive in the mail. He feels guilty, return to sender...Post office pops it right back to his house a week later.

  • Yea, they also claim 118K total CV19 cases (Score:5, Insightful)

    by waspleg ( 316038 ) on Monday January 17, 2022 @07:42PM (#62182619) Journal

    and 4849 deaths. [jhu.edu]

    They're liars, about EVERYTHING, fuck the CCP. Trust NOTHING that comes out of China.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dryeo ( 100693 )

      Why do you think very hard lockdowns don't work? Look at Australia, if you get the army involved and do a hard enough lockdown, close the borders etc, you can stop the virus, at least pre-Omicron.

  • Remember Monk? (Score:3)

    by AndyKron ( 937105 ) on Monday January 17, 2022 @07:46PM (#62182629)
    This is why Monk microwaves all his mail.Remember Monk? https://youtu.be/f4W2xmqjvx4?t... [youtu.be]

    • I know a retired chemical engineer who puts all the incoming mail and groceries into a box outdoors with an ozone generator inside. There's lab data about ozone killing viruses but I haven't checked about microwaves.

      • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Cody'sLab on YouTube did a video where he demonstrated that microwaves do nothing to things as small as fruit flies [newsweek.com]. That video got him a suspension from YouTube for violating community guidelines.

        Meanwhile, Dr. Fauci cuts the vocal cords of beagle puppies and subjects them to being slowly eaten alive by sandflies. And he's still the highest paid gov't employee on the payroll.

  • Let me get this right: (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dschnur ( 61074 ) on Monday January 17, 2022 @07:49PM (#62182631)
    The guy had Omicron. They tested a package that was in his residence, therefore exposed to Omicron. They detected the virus on the package. So, therefore, it came from Canada!!

    Why is it that the other obvious, the package was contaminated by him, isn't a thing here?

    Could be that, Xi is still having a spat with Canada.
    • Because the guy hadn't been to Canada, so how could he have possibly gotten the Virus from Canada unless it was from the package.

    • They supposedly tested 13k people in the neighbourhood/her workplace (it was a female who got detected) and also tested a batch of the mail yet to be delivered.

      It seems some covid 19 virus particles were found on the yet to be delivered mail.

      Am stating what I read elsewhere, did not read the link here. Am kind of doubtful in the viral mail delivery theory as well.

  • But they're vaccinated...right? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    They're more authoritarian than the Biden administration. They should all be vaxxed up...so... shouldn't be a big deal... ...right?

    Or are they anti vaxxers for doubting the efficacy of "the vaccine"?

    Which one is it?

  • Risk is relative (Score:2, Insightful)

    by khchung ( 462899 )

    Experts have repeatedly said that there is little risk of getting the coronavirus from mail.

    When there are covid infected people walking around everywhere without masks? Sure, there is "little" risk of getting covid from the mail.

    When the whole country is basically covid-free? Getting covid in the mail is the biggest risk for people not working in the airports or living near land borders.

    And also, there was not just a single case as the summary alluded to. There had been multiple cases around the country that popped up out of nowhere, and at least some of the cases were people whose job is to h

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by splutty ( 43475 )

      Because "One infection only, because of mail." is such an utterly unlikely and stupid case as opposed to literally every other vector of infection, that it scores 10/10 on the propaganda scale.

  • Seriously... even if the odds were 1 in 100 billion, with 7.84 billion people, it could happen.

  • COVID-19 does not live long on surfaces, so kudos to Canada's mail system to get mail delivered across the world before the virus died.

    • COVID-19 does not live long on surfaces, so kudos to Canada's mail system to get mail delivered across the world before the virus died.

      To bad they are failing so badly at getting Canadian mail delivered right here in Canada.

  • Cause vs Effect (Score:4, Insightful)

    by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Monday January 17, 2022 @08:25PM (#62182743)

    They claim to have detected the Omicron variant on the letter.

    Maybe because the guy who opened it was infected?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by khchung ( 462899 )

      They claim to have detected the Omicron variant on the letter.

      Maybe because the guy who opened it was infected?

      And how do you explain the presence of covid on sheets of the letter that was NOT touched by the infected?

      Yes, they had isolated the mail, the only piece of foreign mail recently received by the infected, collected samples from the envelope and every sheet in the letter (8 pages in total), and found covid on *every* sheet, while the infected had only touched the first page.

      Let's see how many western media omit that fact when reporting this.

      • Let's see how many western media omit that assertion by the CCP when reporting this.

        FTFY

      • Cross contamination or the people doing the testing had it. Indeed, statistically speaking at least one of those samples should have been negative. The fact that all were positive makes PEBEAC more likely than not.

  • ... must have come up with this one. Communist governments are both scary and insanely funny/stupid at the same time. Xi must be taking lessons from Kim.

  • There goes my idea for selling a 'cough in a jar'.

  • China Coronavirus patients are WELDED into homes (Score:3, Interesting)

    by schwit1 ( 797399 ) on Monday January 17, 2022 @11:16PM (#62183139)

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/b... [cbsnews.com]

    Videos are alleged to show a horrific standard practice as coronavirus panic grips the Chinese government.

    Activists have told how people suspected to be infected with the deadly disease are being left to "starve and die".

  • In a credibility contest between official China and Donald Trump, I'm not sure who'd score lower.

  • Outside of China = bad, inside China = good (Score:3)

    by bb_matt ( 5705262 ) on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @12:38AM (#62183251)

    Just more bias added to an incredible amount of bias, in order for China to control citizens.

    I don't know many Chinese people, but clearly human nature is at play here.
    We can see it in more open nations, where a populace are reasonably easy to control via such messaging.
    In a closed system, like China, it must be vanishingly easy to do this - just look how compliant the citizens of China appear to be.
    I say appear to be, as I only have the information I have consumed to make this connection, I've never been to China.

    Continue to pile on scare stories about the world outside of China - eventually, you have unconscious bias - people don't even know anymore, why they feel and behave the way they do. The message has been played out so many times, from so many sources.

    History gives us alarming lessons of this exact ploy, especially modern history.
    We are all susceptible to it, regardless of how smart we think we are.

    Anyway, I read this as having nothing to do with Covid and everything to do with "China good, outside China bad."

  • I am not gonna believe a FUCKING WORD they are saying. They have at every step prevented investigation into origin of outbreak on their soil and they expect us to believe they got it it by post? WHY would I trust them with that?

  • China claims? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @01:11AM (#62183275)
    China claims a lot of things. But with the CCP's reputation, does it really matter what they claim?

    • I would say it matters to the extent that what they say is covering up human rights atrocities, laying groundwork for subjugating their neighbors, and wielding their economic power to contort the policy and institutions of other nations; and for that we should conduct public dissections of their propaganda and what they're trying to get away with.

      But I don't believe what scientifically-illiterate bureaucrats in Beijing think they can pullover on the locals should be competing for our focus. It's entirely to

  • 1. The Chinese person was already infected and got some of it on the letter
    2. The Chinese government is making up shit as per usual

  • Helloooo, who is is
    *Lougie-Gram! â¦
    Iâ(TM)m sorry, who?
    *Lougie- Gram! â¦..
    Did you say Lougie-Gram? No thank youâ¦
    *Knock, Knock , Knock
    Hellooo who is it?
    Uhmmm.. Candy-Gram!

  • I'm reminded of when New Zealand officials proposed cold food storage as a route for a new covid case when NZ was trying to maintain covid-zero in the middle of 2020. Needless to say, later studies found no support for this hypothesis.

    But you can see the advantage for a politician in blame avoidance -- it's not that the quarantine facilities they ran leaked. It's the mail! No one in power is at fault and the government doesn't need to make any changes to its activities, yay!

  • Lie often

  • .. machine is working overhours. To avoid blame, to escape responsibility and prevent loss of reputation.

    By far china and russia are the most lying countries ever.

  • Put girl in sack, and carry her across border. China recently publicly shamed/paraded some people smugglers. Or was is caught counting USD notes (nice layer of cocaine to preserve the virus. I think the term is special deliveries, not 'mail'.

  • "Canada's post office notes that the risk of the coronavirus spreading via mail is low as it doesn't live long on surfaces."

    It appears that none of the COVID variants do well on surfaces. I wouldn't go around popping a lot of the bubble wrap used to protect stuff I ordered from China, though.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Back in 2001 after 9/11 happened, the US government told people to buy plastic sheeting and duct tape so they could seal their windows in case of a chemical attack. It later came out they'd held focus groups and concluded that was the advice that would scare people most, so that's what they said.

    This seems very similar. Even if you accept there's a tiny chance the virus could be transmitted by mail, opening it outdoors while wearing gloves is absurd. Just wash your hands after handling it and the risk go

Slashdot Top Deals

Force needed to accelerate 2.2lbs of cookies = 1 Fig-newton to 1 meter per second

Close