Photo:VCG

 
Guangzhou, South China's Guangdong, has become the second city on the Chinese mainland to detect the Omicron variant due to an imported case discovered on Tuesday. 

The patient, 67, returned from a foreign country on November 27. He went back to Guangzhou by flight CA1837 for home quarantine after finishing his concentrated quarantine at his first landing city, according to an official release from Guangzhou Municipal Health Commission on Tuesday.

The official release did not reveal his entry city but the Global Times found flight CA1837 was a flight between Shanghai and Guangzhou, showing that Shanghai was his first entry point after his returning from overseas.

Numerous nucleic acid tests on him were negative until the one taken on Sunday during his home quarantine period in Guangzhou showed a positive result on Monday midnight. 

In a swift manner to control the spread of the virus, Guangzhou had delimited the affected regions into three different zones to implement different epidemic control measures. 

The city quarantined close contacts living in the same residential building with the patient, disinfected affected regions and rolled out tests on all related personnel. 

So far all 9,196 testing samples have returned negative.

On whether Omicron would break through China's border defense line to cause domestic transmission, a public health expert had said given China's dynamic zero-tolerance strategy, even if the Omicron variant further spreads domestically, it would be contained as soon as possible to reduce the impact on production and daily life.

Previously, Tianjin reported one imported case of Omicron variant on Monday.

Global Times