Omikron in China: Corona per Post?

Benjamin Eyssel
ARD-Studio Peking

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Omicron eruption in Beijing

The background to the order is a smaller omicron outbreak in Beijing, which according to the health authorities is now under control. A woman is said to have contracted a package from Canada.

“I disinfect the shipments and ask the delivery services to do the same,” says a young woman from the Chinese capital. “I don’t even order anything from foreign dealers anymore. The pandemic is very bad abroad. I want to support our state’s prevention work.”

A young man says: “It’s possible that you can get infected from a package. But so far there has been no official confirmation.” He doesn’t find that very believable. “Customs also say they check all packages from abroad. That’s why I don’t think it’s so likely to get infected.”

And she already disinfects packages, says another woman. “But I don’t do anything special about deliveries from abroad now. I’m not afraid and treat all packages the same, whether they come from China or from outside.”

Infection by mail theoretically possible

In any case, the message to the population is clear: the danger comes from abroad. However, experts outside of mainland China consider it relatively unlikely that one can be infected via mail. “I wouldn’t categorically rule it out, it’s theoretically possible,” says Ben Cowling, an epidemiologist and professor at the University of Hong Kong. “But it seems very unlikely to me.”

Cowling is sure that the experts are looking for all possible ways that this woman could have been infected. It is known that a virus can survive in cold temperatures. And in this case it was also cold: it was cold in Canada, on the plane and in Beijing. “Theoretically, she could have been infected that way,” says Cowling. “But I think that’s very unlikely.”

Virus import very unlikely

Last year, the Chinese state and party leadership had already put forward the thesis that the corona virus could be spread through imported frozen food. International experts and the World Health Organization (WHO) also consider this unlikely.

A new delta eruption in Beijing is likely to feed this theory. Health officials say the virus was mainly spread by workers at a cold store. Two million people in the south of the Chinese capital were tested over the weekend. You are not allowed to leave the city for the time being.

Worry about travel wave to the New Year festival

In contrast, the restrictions have been lifted in the city of Xi’an. Because of the largest outbreak of the corona virus in China since spring 2020, around 13 million people in the metropolitan region have not been able to leave their homes since shortly before Christmas. The airport has now reopened. Except for a few districts, people are allowed to leave the city again.

The end of the lockdown in Xi’an comes to coincide with the Chinese New Year celebrations next week. Traditionally, hundreds of millions of Chinese travel through the country to visit their families.

In the past two years, the wave of travel was smaller than usual because of the corona pandemic. This year there are fears that people could spread the highly contagious omicron variant.