Cases of the COVID-19 “Delta” variant, which officials say has the shortest transmission time discovered so far, have recently appeared in Guangzhou, China. The variant could be transmitted by simply passing by someone with the virus, even without physical contact. This report puts Shenzhen, the city adjacent to Guangzhou, the world’s third-largest cargo port, under tremendous stress.
According to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) official report on June 21, a fourth-generation Delta virus transmission occurred in only 14 seconds from a third-generation Delta virus carrier to a fourth-generation Delta carrier.
In the published surveillance footage, the third-generation Delta virus carrier, Huang, and the fourth-generation Delta virus carrier, Lu, ate separately in the same restaurant on the same day and entered the same bathroom. They passed by each other at the entrance corridor of the bathroom and spent only 14 seconds in the same environment. There was no physical contact between the two parties, and one of them was not wearing a mask.
According to the report, a viral transmission within 14 seconds in the same environment is the shortest contact time recorded thus far in this pandemic.
Feng Zijian, a Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) researcher, said the recent CCP virus outbreaks in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Dongguan all involve the Delta virus variant.
The Shenzhen Health Commission’s official Weibo reported four confirmed cases of the CCP virus on June 14, 18, and 21.
On June 22, Chang Juping, deputy director of the Shenzhen Municipal Health Commission, confirmed that the four cases were the Delta variant, according to gene sequencing results, and that these cases are identical to the virus genome sequence of the cases imported by Air China’s CA868 international flight.
As of June 20, 38 cases were confirmed among the CA868 passengers who arrived in Shenzhen from Johannesburg, South Africa, on June 10. All of them carry the Delta variant of the CCP virus, first found in India.
BY JULIA YE
