(News) Able to spread between fully vaccinated people and in separate rooms ?: alarm about the possible virulence of omicron

[Askor lml]

Images from the security cameras of a hotel showed that the two infected individuals never left their rooms during the quarantine period.

 

Researchers from the University of Hong Kong (China) recently published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases a preliminary study in which they claim to have detected a possible transmission of the variant of covid-19 omicron between two fully vaccinated people who were staying in rooms separated by a corridor in a quarantine hotel in that city.

According to the scientists, the patients were two men vaccinated with two doses of Pfizer. One of them arrived in Hong Kong from South Africa on November 11, while the other arrived from Canada a day earlier. Both had tested negative for covid-19 within 72 hours before their arrival in Hong Kong.
"Both patients stayed in the same quarantine hotel and had rooms on the same floor," the researchers explain, stressing that the rooms were separated by a corridor.

Images from the hotel's security cameras showed that the two infected individuals never left their rooms during the quarantine period.

"No items were shared between the rooms and other people did not enter any of the rooms," the study noted.

In fact, the only time the men opened the doors was to collect the food that was placed in front of them by the hotel staff.

"Airborne transmission through the corridor is the most likely mode of transmission," the researchers wrote, adding that such spread could suggest that omicron is more infectious than previous variants of the virus.

David Edwards, a scientist at Harvard University (USA) told the Insider medium that it is possible that the virus exhaled by the traveler from South Africa (who tested positive for the omicron variant on November 13) has slipped through under the doors and you've reached the room across the hall. The other man developed "mild symptoms" on November 17 and tested positive the next day.

Blame for drafts and poor ventilation?
"If the hotel had air conditioning and, in particular, low relative humidity, the exhaled droplets from the South African may have been even smaller [than a thousandth of a millimeter], and the passage under the doors and corridors is easily plausible. "Edwards explained, adding that imperfect ventilation in the hallway or even a draft caused by open windows in rooms could have increased the likelihood of viral spread from room to room.

The omicron strain was first detected in late November in South Africa and has since spread to more than 40 countries, setting off alarms around the world and promoting the preventive closure of borders.

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