China’s postal service has ordered workers to disinfect international deliveries and urged the public to reduce orders from overseas after authorities claimed mail could be the source of COVID-19 outbreaks.
China, where the coronavirus first emerged in 2019, has stuck to a strict policy of targeting zero COVID-19 cases even as the rest of the world has reopened, but the nation is now battling multiple small outbreaks, including one in Beijing as the capital prepares to host the Winter Olympics next month.
Chinese officials have suggested that some people could have been infected by packages from abroad, including a woman in Beijing whom authorities said had no contact with other infected people, but tested positive for a variant of SARS-CoV-2 similar to those found in North America.
Photo: AP
China Post on Monday published a statement ordering workers to disinfect the outer packaging of all international mail “as soon as possible,” and requiring employees handling foreign letters and packages to receive vaccine booster shots.
The postal service also asked the public to reduce purchases and deliveries from “countries and regions with a high overseas epidemic risk,” and said domestic mail should be handled in different areas to prevent cross-contamination.
COVID-19 is spread through small liquid particles exhaled by infected people, and both the WHO and the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have said the risk of being infected from contaminated surfaces — known as fomite transmission — is low and becomes less likely as time passes.
The US CDC has said there is a 99 percent reduction in virus traces left on most surfaces within three days, but China is not willing to take any risks, even more so ahead of next month’s Olympics.
The nation uses strict local lockdowns, mass testing and people tracing apps to stamp out infections as soon as cases are detected.
Millions have been confined to their homes in multiple cities this month after cases of both the Delta and Omicron variants of SARS-CoV-2 flared.
Infections have been detected in areas that receive a high volume of international goods, including in the eastern port city of Tianjin and the southern manufacturing region of Guangdong.
China yesterday reported 127 new domestic COVID-19 cases.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion