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In the early morning hours of Aug. 16, a 41-year-old man from Chongqing township in west-central China gave up and went for a lakeside run in a local outdoor park, anything that deserved to have been pleasurable, if not mundane. . exit. But what actually happened on that 35-minute journey has now sparked alarm and debate abroad, with some scientists doubting China’s surprising narrative.
According to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the maskless man inflamed 33 park visitors without a mask and two park workers without a mask with the BA. 2. 76 subvariant of the omicron coronavirus in its short duration. The firm said the broadcast occurred in ephemeral outdoor encounters in its wake. other people on a 4-meter-wide trail. Many others became inflamed without any close encounter. Twenty of the 33 inflamed park enthusiasts ignited simply by visiting the park’s outdoor spaces the corridor had passed through in the past, adding a front door. Meanwhile, the two inflamed workers temporarily transmitted the infection to 4 other colleagues, bringing the total number of outbreaks in the running park to 39.
For those unusual findings, the CCDC cited case interviews, park surveillance photographs and genetic data about SARS-CoV-2, which would have connected the cases but are conspicuously absent from the report.
The report’s claims, if accurate, would recommend that a significant update is needed for our current understanding of the dangers of SARS-CoV-2 transmission. Although outdoor transmission is known to be possible, it is much less likely than indoors. transmission, where virus debris can float in stagnant air and accumulate in enclosed spaces over time. Transient outdoor encounters are not considered a significant risk, as large volumes of moving air disperse infectious doses of virus debris. For the same reason, SARS-CoV-2 is no idea to stay in the threatening clouds outdoors after an inflamed person.
For now, outdoor experts in China are not revising their thinking about transmission risks, highlighting the report’s lack of genetic knowledge and other questionable conclusions.
Given China’s strict “COVID zero” strategy, the CCDC has categorically rejected the option of infections being part of an undetected outbreak in the wider community, calling runners’ exposure (also known as “patient zero”) “the only imaginable exposure. “
The CCDC says genetic knowledge links all instances, and it appears that patient 0 was the source of the 39 infections. Specifically, the CCDC reports that 29 of the 39 instances had “exactly the same genetic sequence as patient 0; five instances had a mutation site was added to patient 0’s genetic sequence; And it’s possible that the remaining five instances simply haven’t been sequenced due to unqualified samples. “
“If they had serial data that looked like 29 cases had genomes up to ‘patient zero,’ I would recommend that all cases come from an unmarried source,” virologist Angela Rasmussen told Ars. Rasmussen is a researcher at the Organization for Vaccines and Infectious Diseases. at the University of Saskatchewan and affiliated with Georgetown University’s Center for Global Health Science and Security.
“But,” he says, “it’s not transparent whether they did the total genome sequencing of all the cases, which sequencing platform they used (Illumina vs. Nanopore), etc. ” The report only mentions “gene sequencing,” which would possibly recommend only partial genome sequencing, not “total genome sequencing,” which would imply a direct link between cases. Without knowing the knowledge and methods of sequencing, it is about verifying whether the runner was the source.
The CCDC also gives a confusing explanation of how patient 0 jogging became inflamed in the first place.
According to the CCDC, the type became inflamed as a result of “interchangeable exposure to infected airline environments. “days before your jog. None of the flights had known cases of SARS-CoV-2 on board that could be just the big infection. But the plane he took for the return vacation had carried 4 SARS-CoV-2-positive passengers the day before, on August 12.
On August 12, 4 passengers from Tibet flew from Chongqing to Hohhot and then tested positive in Hohhot. Meanwhile, the plane did not deflate after its flight, and the Chongqing guy boarded the next day and sat (in seat 33K) near where 3 of the inflamed passengers were sitting (seats 34A, 34C, 34H). It is not known how it is possible that huguys have become inflamed in this way: SARS-CoV-2 is not known to persist in the air for such prolonged periods of time. and transmission from infected surfaces is rare. In addition, the report does not imply that other passengers on the flight were also inflamed, adding other people who were sitting in the same seats as passengers from Tibet. But patient 0 was inflamed with BA. 2. 76, circulating in Tibet, prompting the CCDC to make a connection.
“I think there’s also a lot of doubt that ‘patient zero’ became inflamed on that plane,” Rasmussen said. can recommend a cryptic spread of BA. 2. 76 in Chongqing, not (only) in Tibet as the newspaper claims. In this case, if a lot of other people in Chongqing have BA. 2. 76, the sequencing knowledge might involve outbreak in Chongqing, however, you would need the actual sequencing knowledge to perceive what is happening.
“Bottom line: Any claims about what knowledge shows depends on whether knowledge is included in the paper,” he said. “Otherwise, it’s just speculation. “
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