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Experts speculate presence of super spreader as Beijing Covid-19 cases cross 200
The WHO official said a super spreading event could have amplified the number of coronavirus infections in China’s capital. He, however, said Beijing has done well to control the new outbreak from spreading.
A Covid-19 super spreader could have aided the rapid spread of more than 200 infections linked to the Xinfadi fresh food market in the southwestern district of Fengtai in Beijing, experts have said.
New infections linked to a single market indicates the sign of a super spreader,Yang Zhanqiu, deputy director of the pathogen biology department at Wuhan University, told the state media.
The speculation on the presence of a super spreader – or an infected human passing on the infection to others – comes in the backdrop of another 22 new cases of Covid-19 in Beijing for June 19, taking the caseload to 205 since June 11.
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A new case related to the outbreak in neighbouring province Hebei was also reported.
More tests were needed to track a super spreader, the experts said.
Michale Ryan, WHO’s emergencies chief, said a super spreading event could have amplified the spread of the new outbreak in Beijing.
“You get a few cases occurring and it then is a super spreading event or something happening where there’s a large amplification of the disease. And when that happens, you want to avoid that first amplification turning back into community transmission,” he said at a press conference in London.
Ryan said China had shared coronavirus sequences from its latest outbreak with the global community and says it appears the virus was imported to Beijing from strains circulating in Europe.
Ryan noted that “strains and viruses have moved around the world” throughout the pandemic.
Analysis of the genetic sequences so far suggests that the virus spread to people in China from other humans instead of jumping from animals directly into humans.
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Ryan said a detailed investigation into the recent Beijing outbreak was needed to find out how the imported cases sparked such a large cluster.
“This coronavirus (in China’s latest outbreak) looks very much like it’s of human origin,” Ryan said.
Ryan said it was essential to understand how the virus spread so quickly and what conditions in the market—included crowded workers, air conditioning and the presence of water—may have helped.
“The environment itself may have facilitated the spread of disease, at least initially,” he said.
“That’s we’ve seen that in meatpacking plants,” he said, adding: “We’ve seen that all over the world. So what is it about this environment that allows the disease to amplify that setting?”
The WHO official said that Beijing has done well to control the new outbreak from spreading.
Illustrating the good examples of Germany, Japan and South Korea, Ryan said: “I think our colleagues in Beijing as well are mounting a very large-scale response ... in an attempt to prevent that from getting out of hand,” emphasising the importance of rapid detection, investigation and suppression of clusters of cases.
