Hotel staffer among two new COVID positive cases in Shanghai
A long line of customers waits to buy mooncakes on Nanjing Road Pedestrian Mall in Shanghai despite the sporadic COVID-19 community cases popping up recently.
Shanghai reported two COVID-19 community infections on Wednesday – an out-of-town hotel intern and a woman who had been to a local hospital visited by a previous case.
The 18-year-old man, who was staying at a large community in suburban Songjiang District, was diagnosed as an asymptomatic case during a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test.
The other case, a 34-year-old woman, stays in Puxing Road Subdistrict of the Pudong New Area. She tested positive during an antigen self-test and was later diagnosed as a confirmed case with mild symptoms.
The city thus designated two high-risk and four medium-risk areas on Wednesday.
"Residents should go to the nearest fever clinics in time with full self-protection if they have symptoms such as fever, cough, tiredness and diminished sense of smell or taste," said Wu Qianyu, a senior official with the Shanghai Health Commission.
Both cases have been transferred to a local designated COVID-19 hospital for quarantine treatment, she added.
A total of 1,457 close contacts of the two cases have been traced and put under central quarantine, and 1,311 among them have tested negative. Some 220,000 related people have been screened, with all testing negative.
Two new community cases were reported in Shanghai on Wednesday.
In addition to the accommodation, the male case had been to a hotel, a noodles restaurant and a billboards club in Songjiang. His community, which has more than 4,000 residents, as well as the hotel he had been to, have been put under a weeklong lockdown.
The other case had been to Shanghai Children's Hospital on Luding Road in Putuo District, which was visited by a 11-year-old girl from outside Shanghai, the positive case reported on Tuesday.
The female case had also been to several large shopping complexes in Pudong as well as Yangpu, Hongkou and Huangpu districts, according to the epidemiological investigation. These places have undergone lockdown and disinfection measures.
Pudong and Songjiang governments have enhanced COVID-19 prevention and management across shopping malls and restaurants in their areas, respectively.
Gu Xiaoyan, deputy director of Songjiang, said all restaurants had been ordered to strictly control the number of diners to 70 percent or half of their capacity, depending on their size.
All restaurant staff must receive daily PCR test along with at least three rounds of major disinfection every day. Customers are required to show a 72-hour negative PCR test report before entering the dining sites, Gu added.
Two new high-risk areas were designated in the Pudong New Area and suburban Songjiang District on Wednesday.
About 46,000 employees at 40 large shopping complexes in Pudong have also been asked to conduct daily PCR tests. Authorities will check and compare the PCR data of the employees every day and warn companies that fail to meet the requirement, Yan Bo, deputy director of Pudong, said.
Shanghai has reported community infections for two days in a row after detecting zero community cases for a week.
All the 246 close contacts, 686 secondary contacts and some 53,000 risky groups related to Tuesday's case had tested negative, according to the health commission's Wu. Five pieces of samples collected from her accommodation tested positive.
Meanwhile, Shanghai Disneyland Hotel in Pudong is currently under a two-day "closed-loop" management and another five days of health monitoring, after a customer from outside Shanghai was traced as a close contact by another provincial authority, according to Shanghaifabu, the official WeChat account of the city's information office.
Shanghai Disneyland, Disney Town and Toy Story Hotel are operating normally.
