Photo: Courtesy of Shanghai Airport

UPS and FedEx employees at Shanghai Pudong International Airport tested positive for COVID-19 after the airport tested 17,719 staff members since it initiated nucleic acid tests on Sunday for all staff, the local CDC reported on Monday night. 

One infected man, surnamed Zhang, 36, is a courier of FedEx working at the airport.

On Monday morning, Shanghai authorities said a 49-year-old employee surnamed Cao from UPS at Shanghai Pudong International Airport tested positive for COVID-19. Another confirmed case is the wife of a UPS employee who tested positive on Saturday. Both are being isolated and treated at the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center. 

UPS told the Global Times on Monday night the company is in active communication and full cooperation with the authorities in Shanghai, adding it has rigorous safety protocols in place, including cleaning facilities multiple times a day, providing employees with Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), implementing social distancing, and providing supplies to clean their work stations and vehicles. 

FedEx confirms that a FedEx staff member working at its facility at Shanghai Pudong International Airport has been confirmed as having contracted COVID-19.   

FedEx said the employee is currently being quarantined and receiving treatment, and the company continues to operate at Shanghai Pudong International Airport.

The airport started wide nucleic acid tests for all working staff over Sunday night after it said several cargo handlers and close contacts were infected with COVID-19 in the past two weeks. 

Sun Xiaodong, deputy director of the Shanghai Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a press conference on Monday that the confirmed local cases reported on November 9 and 10 were both exposed to one contaminated air cargo container.

A residential area in Pudong district, where the FedEx deliveryman had previously visited, has been upgraded to a medium-risk area. Other places the man visited have been disinfected.

Seventeen close contacts of the case have been identified, with all of them undergoing nucleic acid tests, or having been placed in centralized isolation.

Global Times