The Chinese Postal Service ordered its workers to sterilize international postal parcels and urged citizens to reduce purchase orders from abroad, after the authorities claimed that the mail may be the source of the recent outbreak of Corona virus infections in China.

China, which was the first country where the virus appeared in late 2019, is following a strict policy aimed at not recording infections despite the end of the closure in the rest of the world.

But the country is now suffering from small outbreaks, even in the capital, Beijing, which is preparing to host the Winter Olympics.

In recent days, Chinese officials have suggested that some people may have contracted the virus after touching parcels from abroad, including a woman in Beijing who the authorities said had not had contact with infected people, but that she had tested positive for a mutant similar to that circulating in North America.

China Post issued a statement on Monday ordering workers to sterilize international parcels "as soon as possible" and also asking employees who handle foreign letters and parcels to receive booster doses of vaccine.

And it asked citizens to reduce purchases from "countries and regions with high epidemic risk abroad."

The Corona virus spreads through the mouth or nose of an infected person through the droplets that they release when they cough, sneez, talk or breathe.

The World Health Organization, as well as the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), considered that the risk of infection through contaminated surfaces is low, and becomes less likely over time.

The CDC said that the effects of the virus on most surfaces disappear by 99% within 3 days, but China is not ready to take any risks, especially before the Winter Olympics, which it hosts next month.

China - which recorded 127 new infections today - uses strict local closures, mass testing, and applications for tracking infected people to trap infection as soon as infections appear.


Peak spread in Iraq

An Iraqi Ministry of Health official warned that the mutated Omicron has entered the peak stage of its spread in the country, and that the number of infections is likely to rise.

The Director of Health Promotion at the Iraqi Ministry of Health, Haitham Al-Obaidi, said, in a statement to the government newspaper, "Al-Sabah", published today, Tuesday, that the spread of the new mutant in the country is a source of great concern due to the large increase in infections in a short time, and the pressure this will cause on the health sector.

He explained that the incubation of the Corona virus in general ranged from one day to 21 days, while the incubation of the mutant Omicron is less than a week.

In the past weeks, cases of corona infection in Iraq recorded a significant increase, and the total number of injuries recorded in the country since the beginning of 2020 so far has reached more than two million and 118 thousand injuries, while the number of deaths has reached 24,252 cases.


Leaps in injuries in Europe

In Europe, Bulgaria recorded a new record increase in daily cases of "Covid-19", which amounted to about 10,000 today, Tuesday, after the escalation of cases caused by the mutated Omicron strain of the Corona virus.

Health authorities in the European Union with the lowest vaccination rates said they had recorded 161 deaths on Tuesday.

The German "Robert Koch" Institute for Disease Control also announced today, Tuesday, that the weekly rate of new Corona infections in the country recorded a new high today.

The institute indicated that the rate of new infections per 100,000 people within 7 days reached 553.2 this morning, compared to 528.2 yesterday, 387.9 a week ago, and 304.4 a month ago.

The institute stated that the total number of confirmed infections in the country has reached 8,074,527 since the beginning of the pandemic.

The true number could be higher because many cases of infection go unnoticed.

The Czech Republic is also witnessing the largest daily jump in infections since the beginning of last month. The Czech Ministry of Health said that the country recorded today, Tuesday, more than 20 thousand new cases of “Covid-19”, the highest daily increase since the first of December.

The government reduced the period of quarantine and isolation period as part of new measures, while this week it began mandatory examinations for company employees.