Staff members paste QR codes on imported cold chain food for traceable management at a regional cold chain center in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province, Jan. 7, 2021. Photo: Xinhua

Epidemic prevention and control in Dalian, Northeast China's Liaoning Province, has entered a critical stage, Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan said during her inspection in the city amid a COVID-19 surge that recorded 100 new confirmed cases in the past two days, characterized by clusters of companies, families and schools in the city.

Dalian, which shoulders nearly one-third of the storage of cold-chain goods in China and also the largest port of cold-chain aquatic product imports, reported another 60 new locally transmitted cases on Saturday, bringing the total to 235 in the city with 54 more silent carriers.

Of the newly infected cases on Saturday, most are from the city's Zhuanghe region where the first case of the fresh outbreak was identified to be an employee working at a local cold-chain storage warehouse. They are mainly employees from a local food company and students at local middle schools or colleges. 

Dalian health authorities noted on Sunday that the latest caseload spike is characterized by clusters of companies, families and schools, with a high viral load, rapid transmissions.

Given the grave situation in Dalian, Vice Premier Sun Chunlan inspected the region from Friday to Saturday, during which she stressed that Dalian must take more scientific, precise measures to deal with the epidemic decisively to curb spreading.

She urged Dalian to improve the capacity of nucleic acid testing, while insisting on minimizing the scope of testing only to targeted groups, so that normal lives of residents will be less interrupted. 

Meanwhile, the city should locate the source of the origin of the new round of the resurgence as soon as possible to more precisely identify close contacts and key groups, Sun said, adding that a thorough risk screening of both the personnel and the goods should be carried out at all ports in Dalian. 

Local authorities updated the city's risk regions on Sunday, identifying two high-risk regions and 31 medium-risk regions in the city.

Campus courses in all middle and primary schools in the city's Zhuanghe region will be moved to online starting from Sunday, and 10 boarding schools have been put under closed-loop management. 

Two high school students, who were found to be close contacts of confirmed cases, have been sent to designated spots for centralized quarantine, and the school they were attending has not found a trace of further spreading, health officials said Sunday.

As the first identified case in the latest resurgence in Dalian is said to be related to cold storage, it makes the resurgence potentially the third cold-chain related outbreak in the city since the pandemic broke out. 

In July last year, the outbreak in Dalian was suspected to have originated in the processing workshop of Kaiyang Seafood Company. In December last year, the first infected people of the epidemic in Dalian Jinpu New Area were handlers of imported cold-chain food.

By Friday, China reported a total of 1,379 confirmed local cases, involving some 21 provincial-level regions in the latest epidemic flare-up, the National Health Commission said Saturday. 

Global Times