MUNICH — Here's how a saltshaker helped researchers trace back the first evidence of human to human transmission of COVID-19 on German soil.<br /><br />According to a report from Euractiv in collaboration with Reuters, Germany's Patient Zero was a Chinese woman working at the Shanghai branch of Webasto Group, a German car parts supplier. The woman's parents visited her from Wuhan before she left for Germany to attend meetings at the company's headquarters.<br /><br />In order to trace back the origin of the spread, doctors looked into the records of staff meetings and interviewed employees.<br /><br />Through the information they gathered, they found that the first German person infected by the Chinese woman was sitting next to her during a meeting on January 20.<br /><br />Evidence showed that the fourth person to be infected, or case #4, had been in regular contact with the Chinese woman. On January 22, case #4 sat back to back with a co-worker at the office canteen, where they shared a salt shaker. Researchers believe this is when the coworker became the fifth person to be infected.<br /><br />If you're asking yourself, 'How could doctors possibly have recorded the exact moment in which a salt shaker became suspect number one in the spread of the coronavirus?' Don't worry, the doctors themselves are kerfuffled.<br /><br />Clemens Wendtner, the doctor who treated patients that got infected through this cluster, told Reuters, 'It was a stroke of luck.' Apparently, 'all it took' was gathering information from staff and boom, case closed.<br /><br />Thankfully, the researchers' quick actions resulted in healthy employees. In a press release published on March 4, Webasto stated that all previously infected employees had been released from the hospitals and some had already gone back to work.<br /><br />According to the latest data from the Robert Koch Institute, the German federal agency in charge of disease control and prevention, there are currently 120,479 COVID-19 cases and 2,673 deaths due to COVID-19 in Germany. Around 60,300 people have recovered from the viral disease.
