Despite thousands of tests turning out negative, Zhuhai health and market supervisors are not letting up their guard when it come to key personnel and areas in view of the COVID-19 cluster outbreak in Beijing, according to a June 23 press announcement.

As of June 21, market supervision officials had taken 16,641 staff samples, 1,323 food samples, and 1,366 environment samples at farmers markets, cold storage facilities, food processing units, restaurants, food retail stores, and supermarkets throughout the city -- all of which tested negative.

Huang Jian'en, deputy director of the Zhuhai Market Supervision Bureau, assured that frozen food sold locally is safe if it comes from legal sources. Meanwhile, monitoring and regular screening is being strengthened, all frozen food without legal origins removed from shelves, and produce imported from epidemic areas seized once discovered by the authority.

Press conference [Photo by Liu Yanting / nanfangplus]

According to Chai Hongliang, deputy director of the Zhuhai Health Bureau, the city requires arrivals from medium- and high-risk areas to have body temperatures taken and to present health QR code at railway stations, airports, and ports. Those with fever will be transferred to a hospital.

Medical institutions, pharmacies, and emergency centers are to run nucleic acid tests on persons who have traveled to medium- and high-risk areas within the prior 14 days, those in fever clinics, and newly hospitalized patients and their companions. Pharmacies report antipyretic and antitussive drug purchases by customers who have (within 14 days) visited medium- and high-risk areas.

Those who have been to medium- and high-risk areas in Beijing, especially Xinfadi Agricultural Products Wholesale Market, are being tracked and given nucleic acid tests.

In addition, more than 90 percent of third-grade class-A and 70 percent of second-grade hospitals in the city have online reservation systems in order to eliminate crowds. They also epidemiologically scrutinize patients and their companions to quickly find potential infections by using health QR codes and telecommunication big data. Nucleic acid tests of citywide medical staff will be completed this month.

Currently, the city can run 24,000 nucleic tests daily and soon all hospitals at second-grade or above will have testing qualification. 

Zhuhai has reported zero local confirmed cases since Feb 18 and no infections arriving from overseas since March 29. As of June 22, the city had recorded 103 confirmed cases (five imported), among whom 102 had been treated and released and one had succumbed.