Boy returning from Lhasa becomes new local community case
Residents line up for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) screening in Shanghai's Minhang District.
Shanghai reported a COVID-19 community infection on Sunday, a six-year-old boy who traveled back from Lhasa, capital of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region.
The asymptomatic case lives at 580 Wanyuan Road of Minhang District, which has become a new high-risk area of the city. The Gumei Road Subdistrict becomes a low-risk area.
The boy took China Eastern Airlines' Flight MU2336 from Lhasa to Shanghai on August 9 and reported abnormalities in his polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test during the self-health monitoring period.
He had been to Children's Hospital of Fudan University on 399 Wanyuan Road. A total of 396 of his close contacts had been traced as of 4pm on Sunday and more than 80,000 related people are under PCR screening.
The IKEA Xuhui store and related people have been put under two-day quarantine and another five-day health monitoring after a close contact of the boy was traced to the Xuhui District outlet, according to Zhao Dandan, deputy director of the Shanghai Health Commission.
The store will reopen if no abnormality is found after the quarantine and screening, he explained.
The new infection is a 6-year-old boy who had been to Lhasa.
A high-risk area was designated in Minhang District on Sunday.
Residents are reminded to ensure personal protection when entering local malls. They must keep wearing a mask and maintain safe distance from each other, Zhao said.
"The places where the risky groups had been to might be contaminated by the coronavirus," he noted. Quarantine and control measures will be conducted after risk evaluation of these places.
Shanghai reported two community infections on Thursday after zero community cases for six consecutive days.
The new round of resurgence, traced back to a local foot massage shop in Xuhui, had infected 16 people as of midnight Saturday, Zhao revealed.
More than 4,800 people have been put under quarantine and 285,000 were screened. Apart from the reported cases, all the others had tested negative, he added.
Gene sequencing has showed they were infected with the Omicron BA.2.2.1 sub-variant, which is different from the dominant sub-lineage in Sanya, southern Hainan Province, or Shanghai's previous pandemic resurgence.
There are currently eight high-risk areas and seven medium-risk areas in Shanghai. All of them are in Xuhui and Minhang districts.
There are eight high-risk areas and seven medium-risk areas in Shanghai.
