The coronavirus that erupted in China and continued to spread around the world is worrying quite a few people in the US. This is especially true for the consumers who purchase goods from Chinese factories frequently. So, is it possible to infect the Coronavirus from a package that came from China?
We decided to investigate it, and these are the experts' answers:
An infection expert claims that there is no need to worry about opening packages that come from China. "The virus is transmitted only through humans or animals. Unlike a bacterium, a virus must have an organism to survive, which means it must be on a cell, so it is transmitted through saliva," she says.
Does it matter how the package arrives - by air, by sea, by land?
"No. It's hard to believe that a package will contain saliva, but even so, the virus is undergoing a long journey and extreme weather changes and therefore the chance of surviving is nil."
What about packages that contain animals?
"Such a package usually undergoes veterinary examination and is therefore unlikely to be accepted."
We would like to point out that the information about the Coronavirus is still limited, and that at present all medical information is received from China.
On the other hand, other experts do not rule out the possibility of contracting an object but explain that the likelihood of this is extremely low. "The risk is extremely low, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist," explains Professor Thomas Boomert, an infectious disease specialist from the University of Strasbourg, to the Belgian media. "There is no reason to be alarmed because the risk of contracting the virus diminishes very quickly and in fact disappears a few hours after the virus exits a person's body," Prof. Bomert adds.
The Chinese Post Office, incidentally, promised to pay special attention to parcels leaving the Wuhan branch, where the outbreak began and where most of the contamination cases were recorded, and take care to disinfect them.
