Two-day lockdown for residential buildings or companies of close contacts
Citizens brave hot temperatures to receive PCR screening at a local community on Saturday.
Shanghai has updated its quarantine policy for the places where the close contacts of COVID-19 cases have been – amid the recent KTV-related resurgence.
A two-day lockdown plus five-day self-health monitoring are imposed on the residential buildings or companies of the close contacts, or the hospitals or schools that they had been to, said Yuan Zheng'an, a member of the city's COVID-19 experts' team.
Three nucleic acid tests will be conducted on the first, second and seventh days of the quarantine and management period, Yuan told the city's COVID-19 press briefing on Saturday.
During the health monitoring period, they must report to their company or community immediately in case of showing symptoms such as fever. They must avoid taking public transport to nearby fever clinics, and inform doctors that they are under health monitoring period, he explained.
The risk levels and quarantine measures are decided based on the factors such as the living conditions, work and movements of the positive cases as well as their exposure to other risky groups, Yuan said.
More than 200 COVID-19 cases have been reported since the city found an infection in Putuo District on July 3. Most of them were related to local KTVs or bars, and had already been under quarantine or lockdown when tested positive.
Shanghai reported another community infection on Saturday, and designated a new high-risk area in Chedun Town of Songjiang District.
The 65-year-old woman, a confirmed case in mild condition, tested positive during a community screening. The patient, who has received the full two courses of COVID-19 vaccines, has been to two supermarkets, another residential community and a restaurant in Songjiang and Minhang in the last two weeks.
A long line of citizens at a PCR testing site near People's Square.
The residence of Shanghai's new community infection becomes the city's ninth high-risk area.
Her community at 180 Daguantang Road in Songjiang has become a high-risk area, where residents will undergo a weeklong home quarantine, following another three days of quarantine within the neighborhood.
There are currently nine high-risk areas in Shanghai, mostly the living and working places of the positive cases, along with over 140 medium-risk areas, or the places the infections have paid visits to and posed transmission risks. Residents in the medium-risk areas are subject to weeklong community quarantine.
"The number of risky areas, especially the medium-risk areas, has been rising rapidly in Shanghai, because the infections detected since July 3 had been to many local places," said Zhao Dandan, deputy director of the Shanghai Health Commission.
"The recent KTV-related cluster infections have sounded the alarm to us and we must pay high attention."
The commission has revealed that most recent COVID-19 infections were traced back to several karaoke bars and pubs that reopened without authorities' approval.
Among them, two recent cases at the HD Pub in Huangpu District and Xiaokunshan Town in Songjiang District originated from the KTV at 148 Lanxi Road, an illegally reopened karaoke bar in Putuo District, which has been blamed as the origin of the city's ongoing resurgence, according to Zhao.
"They were infected after being exposed in the same enclosed space at the KTV and caused other transmission," Zhao noted.
A citywide overhaul was launched on Saturday of karaoke bars, Internet cafes, mahjong and poker lounges, live-action role-playing games venues and other indoor recreational places.
The new community infection in outlying Songjiang District.
