Foreign Property News | Posted by Hnin Ei Khin
A SUPERSPREADER carrying coronavirus but showing no symptoms infected 71 other people after taking a 60-second trip in a lift.
Details of the shocking case are revealed in a new study released by the US Centres for Disease Control (CDC).
It sets out to analyse the devastating impact a single traveller with no symptoms can have on others. The woman travelled back to her home in China's Heilongjiang province from the US on March 19, the report reveals.
Although she did not have any symptoms, she still quarantined in her apartment and avoided close contact with those living nearby.
Tests carried out later revealed she was an asymptomatic coronavirus carrier.
Three weeks later one of her neighbours and four of the neighbour's close contacts tested positive for the killer virus.
The two neighbors had not bumped into each other but had used the same lift at different times.
According to the CDC study, the neighbor "likely became infected by using the elevator in the building" after the asymptomatic carrier used it.
They think transmission probably happened when the neighbor touched surfaces and buttons in the lift.
No other residents in the building tested positive, but contact tracing later revealed the neighbour was patient zero to a 71-person cluster.
Scientists say elevators are a perfect breeding ground for the virus and they are small, enclosed spaces.
Those are the ideal conditions for the coronavirus' spread, since it's expelled in droplets when an infected person coughs, sneezes, or speaks.
Previous studies have demonstrated that COVID-19 can linger on some surfaces for days, particularly if that surface is stainless steel or plastic.
Ref: The Sun
