China’s Shenzhen Finds New Local Covid-19 Cases, Shutters Stores

(Bloomberg) --

A supermarket worker in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen and five others tested positive for Covid-19, forcing the closure of some stores as officials act to damp a resurgence of the virus.

A 41-year-old woman who sells yogurt at a supermarket run by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. in the tech boomtown was diagnosed with the illness after visiting a doctor on Wednesday, Shenzhen Municipal Health Commission said late Friday night. Five others who tested positive have yet to show any symptoms, local authorities said.

Health authorities in the region have sealed off the supermarket and the residential compound the woman lives in. The Alibaba-backed supermarket operator Hema said on Saturday that it has shuttered 21 stores in the city to sterilize and test all its employees and fresh foods. The local government is providing free testing for anyone who has visited the market in the past four weeks.

The emergence of local infections in the city comes just days after traces of the highly infectious pathogen was detected on frozen chicken wings imported from Brazil. It also follows an outbreak in the western region of Xinjiang that now appears to have waned.

The virus has been found on the packaging of frozen shrimps from overseas through random testing, while imported salmon was also found to have been contaminated in a resurgence that led to more than 300 infections in Beijing in June.

It isn’t yet known how the supermarket worker contracted the virus and there’s little evidence that it can be transmitted from seafood. Still, repeated detection on such products from overseas has hurt demand among Chinese consumers.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

With assistance from Bloomberg