Many city hospitals tighten entry rules, discourage visits
People queue and prepare their health QR code before entering Shanghai Changzheng Hospital on Monday.
Many hospitals in the city have tightened their entry and visit control measures due to new spikes in sporadic COVID-19 infections experienced around China since last week.
The national travel history tracking code system crashed on Monday morning as many public venues, including hospitals, requested people's travel details before allowing entry.
Huashan Hospital and Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital require people visiting patients to provide a negative nucleic acid test report made within seven days, a health QR code and their travel history.
Also, patients and their family need to show their health QR code and travel history to get a temperature check before they can enter the hospitals.
Tongji Hospital said people who have returned from high- or medium-risk regions within 14 days with a temperature over 37.3 degrees Celsius will be sent directly to a fever clinic to do a nucleic acid test.
Patients will not be allowed to leave the fever clinic unless they receive a negative test result.
People who have a history of travel to high- or medium-risk regions are advised to immediately report to the hospital's previewing staff.
Also, people wanting to enter Shanghai General Hospital and Shanghai Changzheng Hospital should scan a QR code to do an epidemiological survey and show the result, plus their health QR code, to staff.
Hospitals are encouraging residents to show their care for patients by making voice calls and video calls instead of physical visits to reduce the chances of infection.
Also, people are being advised to try to avoid visiting highly-populated areas or seeking medical advice through Internet medical service. If they need to visit a hospital, people should wear masks at all time, keep social distance and wash their hands frequently.
The source of this round of infection is the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus, said experts.
It started in Nanjing, capital of neighboring Jiangsu Province, when nine airport cleaners at Nanjing Lukou International Airport tested positive during a routine testing on July 20.
The city, with a population of more than 9.3 million, had reported a total of 215 locally transmitted confirmed cases by Monday, according to the local disease prevention and control center.
So far, no local cases, asymptomatic infection cases or suspected cases have been reported in Shanghai, the local health commission said Monday morning.
People wear masks outside the Huashan Hospital.
National travel history tracking code system crashed
A national travel history tracking code system, which is used for people to enter public sites during the epidemic, crashed in the morning on Monday.
In Shanghai, people found them difficult to access to the interface of so-called Itinerary Card, which is required for entering hospitals, shopping centers and some office buildings.
Normally, people can access to the system, authorized by the State Cabinet, and get a green signal for entry, by Internet browser WeChat or a mobile application.
But they failed in the morning, finding the system crashed.
"Recently, the number of itinerary card queries has increased sharply, bringing increasing pressure on system. We are making every effort to optimize it to ensure stable operation," the operator said in its official WeChat account.
Instead, users can still use the system with short message. If people have a Chinese mobile number, they can use the services by sending a message CXMYD to their operators. Numbers include China Mobile's 10086, China Unicom's 10010 and China Telecom's 10001.
