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Shanghai Finds A Local Covid Case After Months of No Infections

Shanghai Finds A Local Covid Case After Months of No Infections

Shanghai’s city government said on Monday it has found a single domestic case of Covid-19 after months of zero local infections.

The confirmed case, a 51-year-old man, works as a porter at Shanghai Pudong International Airport, Li Guohua, deputy minister of Pudong New District, said at a briefing on Monday. All 26 close contacts have been put under quarantine, among whom 23 have tested negative while the other three are awaiting their results, according to Li.

While China has largely contained the virus, Shanghai has nevertheless reported a steady stream of cases imported from abroad as the virus has continued to spread around the world. The financial hub was among the first in China to resume international flights.

Wu Jinglei, director of the local health commission, said at the briefing that the new infection isn’t related to the city’s ongoing international trade fair, a signature project of President Xi Jinping. The event, which began last week and runs until Tuesday, has seen numerous overseas travelers descend on the city.

Virus controls at the trade fair are in order, Wu said. Meanwhile, the local health commission has raised the village in Pudong where the case was found to a mid-risk area, while the rest of Shanghai remains low-risk.

And the new patient hasn’t been involved in handling frozen food, according to another health official at the briefing. Contaminated pork and seafood have been implicated in the infection of port workers elsewhere in China, prompting an order to disinfect all overseas shipments of cold-chain products to avoid any potential transmission of the virus.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

With assistance from Bloomberg