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Beijing, January. 17 (Xinhua): Source tracing has linked Beijing’s new local COVID-19 infection with international mail, a health official said Monday at a press conference.
The patient received a mail on Jan. 11 delivered from Canada to Beijing via the United States and Hong Kong. She said that she had touched the outside surface of the package and the first page of the document inside, according to Pang Xinghuo, deputy director of Beijing’s center for disease control and prevention.
Pang said they had collected 22 environmental samples from the international mail, and the nucleic acid tests all came back positive.
The new case was reported on Saturday and is confirmed to be an Omicron variant of COVID-19.
According further available information, the international mail was sent from Canada on 7 January, via the United States and Hong Kong, China, to Beijing, and the case received the mail on 11 January. The case is self-reported, during which time it only touched the outer surface of the mail package and the first page of the document paper, and did not touch the inner surface of the package and other papers. 22 environmental specimens of the international mail have been collected, including 2 on the outer surface of the package, 2 on the inner surface and 8 specimens on paper in the document, all of which were positive for nucleic acid testing, and the specific mutation sites of the Omicron strain were detected.
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Source: NewsAsia
