Expo exhibition center opens for COVID-19 quarantine
Citizens line up to receive PCR testing in Songjiang District.
Shanghai launched a new central quarantine site on Saturday to house the city's surging COVID-19 cases.
It is the colossal convention center used for the Shanghai World Expo 2010 in the Pudong New Area.
The central quarantine site at Shanghai World Expo Exhibition & Convention Center will mainly house positive cases with mild symptoms and asymptomatic infections, according to Wu Jinglei, director of the Shanghai Health Commission.
The convention center at 1099 Guozhan Road covers a total construction area of 152,000 square meters. It served as the "Expo theme pavilion" during the Shanghai World Expo and is one of the five key permanent structures left over from the expo, along with the China Art Museum, Expo Center, Expo Axis and Mercedes-Benz Arena.
Another seven back-up designated hospitals and makeshift central quarantine sites for COVID-19 cases have been launched in the city, Wu told a press briefing on Saturday.
The new designated hospitals include the Ruijin Hospital's Jiading branch, Huashan Hospital's Baoshan branch, Zhoupu Hospital in Pudong and Changxing People's Hospital in Chongming District.
Renovations have been completed on the other central quarantine sites, such as the Minhang Stadium, Jiading Stadium and Jiahexinyuan Talent Apartment in Jiading, Wu said.
He refuted an online claim that a makeshift hospital is being built in neighboring Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province, to house COVID-19 patients in Shanghai.
All the new central quarantine and treatment sites are operated by professional medical teams, such as those from Ruijin, Huashan, Zhongshan, Renji and Xinhua hospitals. The medics will offer services according to the nation's COVID-19 diagnosis and treatment protocol, Wu said.
Sufficient vegetable supplies at a local wet market.
"Most patients at these sites are treated with traditional Chinese medicines," Wu said. "Their underlying diseases also require treatments."
The Huashan Hospital's Baoshan Branch, which was converted into a designated hospital for COVID-19 cases on March 20, has dispatched its best medical teams to serve the patients, said Ma Xin, vice president of the hospital.
More than 40 percent of the medics at the new designated hospital rushed to Wuhan in central China's Hubei Province to fight the COVID-19 outbreak in early 2020, said Ma. All the doctors at the mental health department have also been based at the hospital to relieve the nervous and anxious feelings of COVID-19 patients, he added.
Previously, most of the locally transmitted and imported COVID-19 cases and asymptomatic infections were under quarantined treatment at the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center, the city's designated hospital for COVID-19 patients, in suburban Jinshan District.
According to China's latest edition of the "Diagnosis and Treatment Protocol for Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia," confirmed COVID-19 cases with mild symptoms can be put under central quarantine at designated sites. They will be moved to designated hospitals only if their condition becomes worse.
To ensure the medical services for other citizens, the emergency departments, fever clinics, dialysis rooms, operating rooms, intensive care units and maternity room at local hospitals will not be quarantined unless in emergency, said Wu.
"The city-level hospitals, emergency departments of local children's hospitals and fever clinics cannot suspend operation casually for COVID-19 screening," Wu noted.
235 Yubei Road of Beicai Town, the Pudong New Area, has been elevated to a medium-risk area.
Shanghai will continue its classified grid screening with both nucleic acid testing and antigen self-testing measures to achieve dynamic Zero-COVID-19 at the community level, Wu said.
A new round of polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, tests will be launched among citizens in local key subdistricts and towns, where a large number of positive cases were detected during the previous screening.
Everyone in the key areas will receive an additional PCR test from Saturday and their communities will be under lockdown during the testing, Wu said.
An antigen self-testing is being conducted among other citizens.
Those acquiring abnormal results will receive a PCR test immediately, Wu said. No quarantine measure will be imposed on the non-key areas, but citizens are asked to reduce mobility to cope with the testing.
Shanghai reported 38 locally transmitted COVID-19 cases and 2,231 local asymptomatic infections.
Five confirmed patients are previously asymptomatic infections. Three confirmed patients and 1,773 asymptomatic cases were detected during central quarantine, while the rest were found in the screening of high-risk people.
235 Yubei Road of Beicai Town, the Pudong New Area, has been elevated to a medium-risk area of the city, taking the total number of such areas in Shanghai to 19.
The trend and distribution of Shanghai's new COVID-19 cases.
