Community case reported in Shanghai a week before school reopening
Residents line up to receive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) screening in Shanghai's Hongqiao area on Wednesday.
Shanghai reported a COVID-19 community infection on Wednesday, an asymptomatic case who traveled back from a domestic trip recently.
The 43-year-old male, who lives in Pudong's Kangqiao Town, returned from a self-driving tour with his family to multiple places outside Shanghai on Sunday.
He reported abnormality in a mixed-tube polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test on Tuesday and was confirmed as an asymptomatic case on Wednesday.
After returning to Shanghai, he had been to a hotel, a beauty salon, a car maintenance store and several restaurants in the Pudong New Area and Baoshan District, where a massive PCR screening is ongoing, according to Zhao Dandan, deputy director of the Shanghai Health Commission.
His accommodation at 258 Xiuyan Road W. in Pudong has been designated as a high-risk area. More than 3,000 residents in the community have put under a week-long home quarantine with several rounds of PCR tests.
"Shanghai is facing greater risks and challenges as COVID-19 resurgence is being reported in many domestic cities," Zhao noted.
People returning from domestic provinces with COVID-19 cases must report to their neighborhood (village) committees or companies, receive PCR tests and scan venue codes actively. They are also required to go to hospital if they show symptoms such as fever and cough, he added.
The new infection has sparked concerns among local parents, because primary and secondary schools as well as kindergartens and childcare facilities in Shanghai will reopen from September 1.
In Pudong, where the new case was detected, about 620,000 students and teachers will next Thursday return to in-person classes, which have been mostly suspended since the city's COVID-19 resurgence in March.
According to the city's education commission, all faculty and students need to take two nucleic acid tests in three days before returning to the campus. After the opening of the new semester, they must take a nucleic acid test before leaving the campus every day.
Pudong has trained over 20,000 PCR sample collection professionals, including many from the faculty, to meet the daily testing demand, said Yan Bo, deputy director of Pudong.
Quick response plans have been made for various emergency situations, such as abnormal test results of students or faculty in PCR or antigen tests, Yan revealed. "All kinds of emergencies will be handled rapidly to avoid affecting school operations."
The health commission's Zhao laid stress on health management policies for people returning from domestic COVID-related regions since all of the city's latest community cases had traveled outside Shanghai.
A weeklong central quarantine is mandatory for people coming or returning from domestic COVID-19 high-risk areas, while a week of home quarantine is required for those coming from medium-risk areas.
People returning from low-risk areas are asked to conduct two PCR tests within three days after arrival.
Besides, those from domestic regions, where a lockdown is in force, or "key regions" which have rapid COVID-19 transmission or any COVID-19 case that has spread to Shanghai, must also undergo the weeklong central quarantine.
Travelers from domestic cities with a "key region" will have to undergo a three-day central quarantine and another four days of home quarantine after arriving in Shanghai, Zhao said.
The Chinese mainland reported 380 locally-transmitted confirmed COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, of which 264 were in southern Hainan Province.
Altogether 1,261 local asymptomatic carriers were identified on Tuesday, including 543 in southwestern Tibet Autonomous Region and 336 in Hainan.
