BETTER beware who's coming down your chimney this Christmas, with Santa Claus now being accused of being a COVID-19 "superspreader".
About 75 residents and staff in an aged care facility in Antwerp, Belgium have been diagnosed with coronavirus after a visit by a red-suited volunteer at a festive event last week.
Unfortunately the jolly red fellow was asymptomatically in the early stages of COVID-19, and fell ill three days after his visit, by which stage the virus was running rampant.
Initially authorities at the care home insisted rules around social distancing and masks had been strictly followed, but photos on social media of the at-the-time happy occasion have confirmed that wasn't actually the case.
And while we're on the subect, here's a good way of containing COVID-19 - conduct a software update on your IT systems.
That's what officials in the US state of Montana did on Mon this week, with a makeover of the statewide communicable disease reporting system requiring the platform to be shut down for 24 hours.
"So no cases could be reported to the state for today's update," they said, meaning that in contrast to the recent trend of about 1,000 new cases each day, the official figure was zero.
Authorities said the anomaly would be addressed in the next few days as local public health workers catch up on data entry.
The above article was sent to subscribers in Pharmacy Daily's issue from 16 Dec 20
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