A staff member at a Boston university is being treated for minor injuries after a package delivered to the campus detonated while they were opening it.

A spokesperson for Northeastern University said the explosion happened shortly after 7 p.m. at Holmes Hall. No students were injured.

The Boston Police Department's Bomb Squad responded to the scene to investigate the incident, according to the spokesperson.

Responding police officers and Boston Emergency Medical Services personnel found the staff member, a 45-year-old man, suffering from minor hand injuries. That man was transported to an area hospital for treatment.

"I take very seriously that this city is home to everyone's young people, from our littlest learners up to our college students and university staff," said Boston Mayor Michelle Wu. "So we want to make sure we emphasize that this is of the utmost priority: the safety and well-being of all of our young people here."

A search revealed a second similar package that was ultimately rendered safe by the Boston Police Department's bomb squad.

Cox said the Boston Police Department is working with its law enforcement partners at Boston Regional Intelligence, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

"We are going to be working and continue to work with all our campus security partners, as well, to make sure all the students here are safe — as well as the rest of the residents in the city," the commissioner said.

The FBI's Boston Division confirmed that it is offering its full support to its partners, especially Boston police, including the full resources of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, evidence response team and special agent bomb technicians.

"We're fully integrated with our partners and remain committed to resolving the incident safely," said FBI Boston Assistant Special Agent in Charge Jason Cromartie.

Sister station WCVB reporter Mike Beaudet said he was teaching a journalism class at Northeastern University at the time. He said his class was moved outside but that neither he nor any of his students heard any explosions.

"I didn't hear any explosions. I don't think any of the other students did," Dicorpo said. "But we heard the fire alarm and so we assumed we should leave."

"It's pretty late at night. Our class was an exception. Most students are home for the day. There's not a lot of classes going on," Maize said.

At about 10 p.m., NewsCenter 5's Nathalie Pozo received an alert from the university stating that the scene at Holmes Hall was contained and the campus was secured and that Northeastern police were working closely with Boston police to secure the area.

"It's very important to note that our campus is secure and we will maintain a secure campus in perpetuity," said Northeastern University police Chief Michael Davis. "That's our work and that's what we continue to do, and we'll be working with our partners here to get this resolved."

It started late 2021 with some tongue-in-cheek Tweets about bad Amazon reviews for Yankee Candles. 

Could they be a canary in the coal mind for a COVID surge to come? 

Northeastern University Assistant Professor and Researcher Nick Beauchamp was curious.  

He'd been looking at social media impacting COVID-19 data. His next hypothesis included the COVID symptom of anosmia, aka loss of smell.  

"I downloaded a bunch of review data, counted up the references to no smell or no scent and sort of shared a plot of that curve, which indeed matches the COVID curve," Beauchamp said.   

He then looked beyond candles, adding perfume reviews to the data and eventually publishing his findings.

"I try, in the project, to sort of check to see whether it holds for perfume. Yeah, it does hold for perfume ... Does it hold for flu? No, it doesn't hold for flu. Does it work even when you control for the sort of seasonality of both COVID and candle purchases and complaints? Yes, it seems to survive that," Beauchamp continued. 

His 2021 results, COVID cases predicted negative reviews but negative reviews did not predict cases.

SEE MORE: COVID-19 Survivors Still Dealing With Lingering Symptoms

"It's possible, or plausible, that the rise in complaints was actually due to COVID, you know, with all the usual caveats, but that the reviews themselves were not super good at giving us a heads up on when cases were rising," Beauchamp said.

He ran the numbers again June 2022 and found bad reviews went out and then cases went up.  

Beauchamp has visited the numbers again this month. He says so far, in October, the bad reviews have been on the rise for the past two months, cases have stayed flat or declined over the same period.  

Important to note: Case tracking has been impacted by factors like at-home testing. The CDC has also moved from daily case and death counts to weekly ones. 

Health experts are predicting a modest fall and winter wave, going off current case increases in Europe.   

Meanwhile, Beauchamp says the candle data is just interesting and funny, nothing more. But the research has impacted how his family thinks about health.

"We haven't taken to sniffing candles to test ourselves, but, you know, we are fairly cautious—and I think, probably because I spend time working on this—more cautious than the average household," he said.

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