Recent COVID-19 infections in Shanghai linked to KTVs, bars
Most of Shanghai's recent COVID-19 infections have been linked to local KTVs and pubs, the city's Center for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday.
These places gather a large number of people with insufficient COVID-19 protection.
They were exposed in the same enclosed space, triggering rapid transmission of the virus in a short period, said Wu Huanyu, deputy director of the center.
They had later been to many public venues and caused the virus to spread wider across the city, posing "concealing community transmission risk," Wu told the city's coronavirus press briefing.
An increasing number of COVID-19 cases have been reported since the city found an infection in Putuo District on July 3, following nearly a week of zero community transmission.
Since then, over 180 infections have been detected among people under quarantine or lockdown.
All had been to or had links with some local KTVs and bars, Wu said.
According to gene sequencing, all the infections of the ongoing flare-up in Shanghai are the Omicron BA.2.2 subvariant.
Residents are being asked to enhance self-protection and receive regular nucleic acid tests.
Those with potential infection risks will receive a short message on mobile phone based on the big data telecommunication analysis, Wu said.
People receiving the message are required to get two nucleic acid tests within three days as soon as possible, he said.
A cinema in Xuhui District is asked to postphone its reopening plan amid the COVID-19 resurgence.
The new round of resurgence centered from an illegally operated KTV and teahouse on Lanxi Road in Putuo has spawned a host of coronavirus infections and risk areas.
Another community infection was reported on Friday along with a new high-risk area in Pudong's Kangqiao Town.
The new confirmed COVID-19 case in mild condition is a 49-year-old woman who had been to a supermarket near her home in the last two weeks.
Her community at 1488 Huanqiao Road has become a new high-risk area. The over 3,000 residents in 37 residential buildings will undergo a weeklong home quarantine, following another three days of quarantine within the neighborhood.
There are currently eight high-risk areas in Shanghai, mostly the living and working places of the positive cases or the places they have paid frequent visits, along with over 100 medium-risk areas, where residents are subject to weeklong community quarantine.
Other sites in the subdistricts and towns with medium- or high-risk areas are low-risk areas, meaning residents there must have a 48-hour negative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test report to leave Shanghai.
Zhao Dandan, the deputy director of Shanghai Health Commission, said the city's COVID-19 prevention and control campaign remain under "great risks and challenges," as the city has fully restored the normal operation after the long lockdown.
"We should unswervingly stick to the chief strategy to 'prevent both imported cases and local resurgence' as well as the 'dynamic zero-COVID-19' chief principle to rapidly contain the spread of the virus," Zhao said.
A complex on Lanxi Road in Putuo District, the origin of the city's ongoing resurgence.
