City confirms new COVID-19 case

SHANGHAI reported one new locally transmitted COVID-19 case on Sunday, health officials said yesterday.

The new case was the bedridden father of a previously confirmed case living in the Zhaotong residential area in Huangpu District.

As a close contact, he had been put under central quarantine on January 21 and had shown symptoms during the quarantine.

All his close contacts have been quarantined, and his home has been disinfected. Epidemiological investigations have been carried out at his residential complex, said Wu Jinglei, director of the Shanghai Health Commission.

All the 13 locally transmitted cases reported since Thursday are being treated at the Shanghai Public Health Clinical

Center. Eight were diagnosed with COVID-19 after they were placed under central quarantine along with 372 close contacts of earlier confirmed cases. They all received nucleic acid tests, with one result awaited.

A total of 1,007 close contacts of the 380 people have also been put under central quarantine, with 940 showing negative results. Tests are still underway.

In addition, 37,592 related people have been identified. Two were diagnosed with COVID-19, and one of them was waiting for the result.

Thirty-five of the 3,483 samples, collected from the patients’ homes and workplaces, tested positive for the virus.

Investigations to track the recent local COVID-19 patients and their close contacts are ongoing, Pan Hao, field team deputy leader for the city’s COVID-19 control and prevention, said yesterday.

Once a suspected COVID-19 case is found, investigations and disinfection will be carried out by relevant departments at the city and district levels, Pan said. “Our job is just like putting out the fire. We need to control it as soon as possible.”

The public security bureaus will investigate close contacts and people at the places, such as homes, restaurants and wet markets that the patients have visited, team leader Huang Xiaoyan said. All of them will be asked to take a nucleic acid test or undergo quarantine.

The centers for disease control and prevention take charge of risk assessment, implement the corresponding action according to the assessment results and collect samples, Huang said. Communities will arrange quarantine.

“During the epidemiological investigations, all details are key evidence,” Pan said.

For example, the time when a person took a cab needs to be accurate to the minute, Pan said. Staff also need to know whether the driver was paid in cash or by mobile phone, where the passengers sat, and whether the car’s windows were open.

“Although some elderly people may not remember much about the last 14 days, our team members will help picture what they did and when in detail by communicating with them and their family members,” Pan said.

Shanghai also reported two imported COVID-19 cases on Sunday, both of them Chinese. One worked in Israel and arrived at the Shanghai Pudong International Airport on January 20, the other studied in Japan and arrived on January 22.

According to the local health commission, there have been 362 local cases and 1,282 imported cases so far. Seven patients have died.