Covid-19 Omicron variant jumps to new city in southern China after family drive
- 11-year-old close contact of Zhuhai case tests positive in Meizhou, is transferred to neighbouring Shenzhen for treatment
- There were 163 locally acquired infections across the country on Monday, with nine reported in Guangdong province
Authorities in the city of Meizhou urged people to stay put after an 11-year-old boy tested positive for the highly transmissible variant on Sunday. He has been transferred to neighbouring Shenzhen for treatment.
The boy is a close contact of a confirmed case in Zhuhai, also in Guangdong province. He arrived in Meizhou on Tuesday night with his parents – after a five-hour drive – and had been tested repeatedly since Friday.
His seventh sample returned a positive result and officials said he was asymptomatic at that time. He is now showing symptoms and is being treated in isolation. Genome sequencing confirmed it was the same transmission chain as the Omicron variant in Zhuhai.
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Meizhou authorities launched a second round of mass testing in three of the city’s townships, after no cases were uncovered from more than 117,000 samples taken in round one.
Public transport to the affected towns has also been suspended and anyone who needs to leave Meizhou must show a negative test result from the past 48 hours.
Meizhou authorities said on Monday that all incoming passengers at the city’s airport, railway and bus stations would be tested, while those who had arrived from outbreak areas in the past two weeks should report to their company, community or hotel.
Residents who recently returned from other provinces or Shenzhen, Zhongshan or Zhuhai were encouraged to undergo testing and self-health monitoring for 14 days, according to a notice.
Authorities also told tourist attractions and restaurants in the city to cap the number of guests at 75 per cent of their maximum capacity.
Meanwhile, venues such as bars, cinemas and gyms were ordered to close in Wuhua county, where the Omicron patient lives.
There were eight other cases reported in Guangdong on Monday – five in Zhuhai, two in Shenzhen and one in Zhongshan.
Across China, there were 163 locally transmitted cases, with 80 in Tianjin, 68 in Henan province, five in Shaanxi’s provincial capital Xian, and one in Guangxi autonomous region. The country also reported 88 imported cases, 60 of them symptomatic.
