Chennai: In a study published in the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website, Chinese researchers identified an outbreak of Covid-19 infections which via elevator surfaces in a province in China. This is being viewed as a marked departure from previous lukewarm notices on surface-to-person transmissions.
According to authors of the report, an infected but asymptomatic woman, alone in an elevator, who did not come into close contact with anyone, was found responsible for a Covid-19 outbreak that infected 71 people.
Neighbours were infected after they came into contact with surfaces in an elevator, and they went on to infect other people.
The study said that the infected woman’s short trip via the elevator to her apartment, en route quarantine, may have caused the outbreak. The asymptomatic woman returned from the US to the Chinese province of Heilongjiang in March.
When tested, she presented a negative result, but, as an international traveller, she was required to quarantine in her home, where she lived alone. As it turned out, she was also alone in the elevator when she went to the apartment and did not come into close contact with anyone during the quarantine.
The authors of the study found that the neighbour downstairs from the woman’s apartment used the same elevator, albeit separately. That neighbour interacted with mother, boyfriend, and another man and his two children. This other man suffered a stroke in early April and was admitted to a hospital, his two children by his side. During the time he was in the hospital, he was treated by a medical team who was also in charge of other patients in the ward. When the man developed a fever, he was transferred to another hospital.
According to the report, prior to April 9, 2020, Heilongjiang Province, China, had not reported a new Covid-19 diagnosis since 11 March, 2020. On 9 April, SARS-CoV-2 was diagnosed in 4 patients. By 22 April, 71 persons had been infected. The likely origin of this cluster is an imported case from an asymptomatic traveler.
Experts noticed the connection when the mother of patient zero’s neighbour and her boyfriend developed symptoms and tested positive. Things came into focus when the neighbour, the neighbour’s mother, and the man who had a stroke, all tested positive. The stroke hospitalisation resulted in the infection of 28 others, including other ambulatory patients and the medical team. Objects, such as tomography equipment and a microwave, were also shared with other patients. The transfer to a second hospital resulted in another 20 infections.