SHANGHAI: Leaving a fine mist of disinfectant in their wake, China's hazmat-clad health workers are cleaning homes, roads, parcels and even people - but more than two years into the pandemic, experts say it is a futile measure against COVID-19.
Footage shows legions of"big whites" - as health workers in hazmat suits are referred to in China - spraying apartments with a virus-killing haze after their inhabitants have been taken into state quarantine. But such labour-intensive campaigns are relatively pointless against a virus that spreads through droplets expelled in coughs and sneezes into the air, experts told AFP.
The city has seethed for weeks under a shifting mosaic of lockdowns that have seen some of its 25 million residents scuffle with police and unleash a flood of fury and frustration on social media. One Shanghai resident told AFP his home was sterilised twice after they returned from quarantine, with his family being ordered to wait outside for an hour each time.While the virus can transmit through surfaces,"it cannot survive long outside the human body, so it is unnecessary to sterilise outdoor surfaces," Huang from the Council on Foreign Relations said.
Given the disruptive impact of sudden lockdowns,"one could see a rationale for using every possible approach to reduce transmission," he told AFP.