‘China parcel’ is ticking time bomb Doctors said there was no reason to panic as a parcel could not carry the virus for such a long time

The parcel from China. Picture by Dip Das

Snehamoy Chakraborty, TT,  22.03.20, Burdwan: A woman in East Burdwan’s Kalna has been forced to go into at least three days of self-isolation after receiving an e-commerce parcel from China that she had ordered online in December last year.

The 32-year-old woman, an employee of an ayurvedic goods firm, said she had ordered a pair of shoes online on December 31, without specifically knowing that it would be shipped from China.

“In any case, the coronavirus was nowhere in the scene at that time,” she said over phone on Saturday.

In the morning, she received a phone call from Kalna post-office asking her to collect the package. Officials told her that no one was willing to touch the package, which bore air-parcel stamps from China Post, the Chinese government’s official postal service.

“At first they asked me whether I was willing to collect a parcel that has come from China. When I said yes, they asked me to collect it myself,” she said, referring to the panic the “Chinese parcel” triggered at the Kalna post-office.

The woman said she was harassed further when she reached the post-office.

“The officials jeered at me saying I should stay 10ft away and demanded to know why I had ordered something from China at such a time,” she said. “They said the parcel should undergo an inspection, but I took it home,” she added.

Later on Saturday, postal officials admitted that the Chinese labels on the parcel had caused unnecessary panic. “It could be that there was no actual risk, but no one wanted to take a chance,” said postmaster Utpal Bhattacharya, adding that they had informed the local police about the package.

The police later in the day contacted the woman at her home and instructed her to isolate the package for a month and to herself stay in home quarantine for at least three days.

“I spoke to my doctor friends, who said that there was no chance of any infection in this case. But now my family members and neighbours are in panic. If this is the case, why did the postmaster even ask me to collect it?” the woman said.

Doctors, however, said there was no reason to panic as a parcel could not carry the virus for such a long time.