Did Tianjin’s Omicron coronavirus outbreak start elsewhere in China? Health officials investigate
- Cases of the variant in the Chinese city found to have different sources to earlier imported cases, according to genome sequencing
- City CDC deputy director says strain – which has a shorter incubation period than earlier ones – might have been ‘hiding’ in the city for some time
Zhang Ying, deputy director of the Tianjin CDC, told state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) on Monday night the Omicron strain circulating in the city might have come from another part of China or was transmitted through imported goods or other environmental contamination sources.
Tianjin has tested almost 12 million people since Sunday morning, detecting 77 new positive cases among the results for nearly 7.9 million people so far.
That pushed the total number of positive cases in the city’s Omicron outbreak to 97, 90 of them from Jinnan district. Of those, 49 were symptomatic cases and 15 asymptomatic. Another 33 tested positive and are awaiting confirmation.
02:05
2 Omicron cases spark citywide testing in Chinese city of Tianjin near Beijing
