Chinese officials are recommending people stop ordering items to be delivered from overseas, after saying a local woman may have been infected by Omicron after opening a parcel

Government officials have repeated the theory that COVID could be spread internationally on imports of frozen food, something many scientists have questioned.

Officials claim that the woman who tested positive had no history of travel and was not a close contact.

They revealed that they found traces of the virus on a package she received.

The infection comes less than three weeks before Beijing is set to host the Winter Olympics

On Monday, China announced that it would not be selling tickets to members of the public for the Olympic Games, instead, as part of a way to control the virus, only people invited will be allowed to attend.

It is not yet clear how they will be selected or whether they will have to quarantine.

The case of the positive woman is, so far, the only one here to have been recorded with the highly contagious variant of COVID, according to the BBC.

AFP news agency reported that Chinese health official Pang Xinghuo stated that the virus had been found on the surface of a letter the infected person had received from Canada, as well as inside the unopened letter.

Dozens of letters from the same batch were tested, and five showed positive traces of COVID, Ms Pang said, including samples from inside unopened letters.

Beijing’s Centre for Disease Control said the possibility that the woman was infected by a parcel from another country could not be ruled out.

If deliveries from abroad are opened, it has been suggested that this should be done outside, with the opener wearing gloves and disposing of the packaging immediately.