After the city of Beijing announced its first case of the Omicron variant, Chinese officials alleged that the virus may have travelled to the city through a piece of mail from Canada—a claim experts say doesn’t add up.
“This doesn’t sound credible at all,” Dr. Colin Furness, an expert in infectious disease epidemiology from the University of Toronto, told CTVNews.ca in an email, noting that surface transmission of COVID-19 through international mail is highly improbable.
The Beijing Center for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) said that the city reported one case of the COVID-19 variant on Saturday in a 26-year-old woman. After conducting contact tracing, officials said the woman did not travel outside the capital and had not come in contact with anyone else with the virus.
However, the Beijing CDC says it examined the woman’s mail, which included a letter sent on Jan. 7 from Canada, arriving in Beijing three days later via the United States and Hong Kong.
Officials allege that piece of mail had traces of the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. This includes samples taken from the paper inside the envelope, even though the woman said she had only touched the outer surface of the package.
“The possibility of contracting the virus through foreign items cannot be ruled out,” the Beijing CDC said in a translated news release.
But Furness says it’s highly unlikely that the virus could survive for that many days in transit.
“COVID’s ability to survive on paper depends partly on the roughness of the paper. But it’s unlikely to persist in an active state for more than a day or two. High friction with other documents in a mailbag makes survival of even a day seem unlikely,” he said.
University of Saskatchewan epidemiologist Dr. Nazeem Muhajarine also calls the claims “bewildering.”
“I would ask whether the ‘officials’ who claimed this have ruled out all other more plausible exposures to Omicron. Are these supposed viral particles isolated and tested viable? Is there any independent verification?” Muhajarine said in an email to CTVNews.ca.
“For this claim to carry any credibility, so many exceptional things have to line up.”
The Beijing CDC is encouraging residents to wear gloves while handling packages, disinfect packaging with alcohol and avoid buying goods from overseas if possible.
However, Muhajarine says that reports of transmission of COVID-19 through surfaces are “exceedingly rare.”
“We now know that this virus transmits most readily through the air via aerosolized means. Even then, it is likely that Omicron doesn’t maintain its viability to infect days after it is released into the air,” he said.
When asked about the claims from Chinese officials, Canadian Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said the allegations are “certainly not in accordance with what we have done both internationally and domestically.”
“I would say that the experts can tell us what to think,” he told reporters in French on Monday. “I obviously have my own opinion. But for an opinion to be useful and credible, we need more information and I think the experts should speak.”
Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole called the reports “comical.”
“Obviously we’re very concerned with variants within the pandemic, variants that have come from outside of Canada but that we have to deal with here. Stories like this remind us that from the beginning of the pandemic, some of the news and reporting out of China could not be trusted,” he said at a Monday press conference.
The single case in Beijing has been identified at the worst possible time for the city, as it prepares to welcome thousands of athletes for the Olympics — including from countries where Omicron is raging.
Furness also notes that geopolitics may be a part of why Chinese authorities are pointing the finger at Canada.
“Sino-Canadian relations are in poor shape, and China may be very keen to counter accusations that it infected the world, with these sorts of narratives,” he said.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
