Hong Kong virologist assesses the chance of a large outbreak as very low

The chance of a large outbreak after the single pneumonia case reported by Russia is very low, according to Dong-Yan Jin (金冬雁). The professor at the School of Biomedical Sciences and Senior Associate Dean of the Graduate School at the University of Hong Kong gave this assessment to Hongxing News journalists Qi Biao and Hu Yiwen. Their report was published on 9 October.

The virologist explained that plague is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis and stressed that antibiotics can treat it when detected early. This is a general assessment of the disease: the published interview contains no results from testing Darya Shipilova’s samples.

An unnamed infectious-disease doctor in the same report suggested that vaccination and protective measures would make infection after damage to a test tube difficult. This is an anonymous interviewee’s opinion; the article provides no records of her individual vaccination, working conditions or samples.

The interview also appears on Sina’s technology section with the same byline. Both pages relay one interview. Rospotrebnadzor (Russia’s Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing) previously reported that all contacts had completed monitoring. The new report adds no laboratory confirmation of plague or new official decision by China.

Both pages are dated 9 October. The technology page displays 10:08 and has metadata fields for 10:08:00 and 10:19:44 in UTC+8, matching Irkutsk time. The official-account page displays 10:24 and gives 10:24:55 in metadata without a timezone. The reasons for the differing fields and the interview date/time are unknown. Added on 9 October.