Photo: VCG

The local COVID-19 patient reported in Shanghai earlier this week, a nurse working at a hospital in the city's suburbs, was infected probably by her "neglect of protection" when exposed to people or environment "contaminated by the coronavirus imported from abroad," Shanghai health authority said on Friday.

Gene sequencing done on the coronavirus the patient carried showed that she was infected with the Delta variant, which is highly homologous with the imported case(s) that recently stayed at her hospital for medical observation. They belong to the same transmission chain, local health authority said.

Shanghai has traced and conducted nucleic acid testings for 10,471 related personnel, including 33 close contacts of the patient, as of Friday morning. They were all tested negative.

The nurse from Shanghai Songjiang District Central Hospital was confirmed as having COVID-19 on Wednesday and has been transferred to Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center for quarantine and treatment, the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission announced on Wednesday evening.

The nurse had not been to other provinces over the past two weeks or had any contact with other domestic epidemic-hit areas recently. 

According to the local health authority, the patient has had two vaccine doses and before she was tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday she tested negative in all the nucleic acid tests she took once every three days since August 2.

Epidemiological investigations show that she had not left Shanghai over the past 14 days. 

The hospital where she works suspended its outpatient and emergency services on Wednesday and has been conducting nucleic acid tests among all related personnel. 

All the places the nurse visited over the past two weeks have been placed under closed management and have been disinfected. 

She had been to the Eye & ENT Hospital of Fudan University, which has also suspended its outpatient and emergency services on Wednesday to carry out nucleic acid testing. 

As of 8 am on Thursday, 18 close contacts of the patient have been placed under quarantine and they all tested negative for the virus during the first round of nucleic acid testing. 

A hundred close contacts of the 18 people and another 9,188 related personnel all tested negative. A total of 610 samples collected from the environment related to the patient tested negative except for one sample collected from the toilet faucet, which tested weak positive. 

The Youlu Apartment residential compound in Yongfeng community, Songjiang district where the nurse lives has been designated as a medium-risk area while the rest of Shanghai remains low-risk.

Global Times