Link between COVID cases and training class seen

Cluster infections of COVID-19 from a training course were reported in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, with a risk of further spread outside the province, a senior Wuhan official said on Tuesday.

Li Tao, deputy secretary-general of the city's government, said Wuhan reported 10 new COVID-19 cases in the 14 hours ending at noon on Tuesday, bringing the tally to 14 since Monday.

"Of the 14 confirmed cases, 13(of the patients) attended a training class organized by a company in a local hotel, and the remaining one is a family member of an infected person," Li told a news conference. "Four of them came from outside the city."

According to Li, the health product company's training course, which lasted from Friday to Sunday, was attended by 66 people, and 24 had left Wuhan to go home.

"All of the infected have been sent to the city's Jinyintan Hospital for further medical observation and treatment," Li said.

To curb further spread, relevant departments immediately triggered an emergency response mechanism and launched an epidemiological investigation, screened personnel, collected samples from nucleic acid tests and disinfected the venues visited by those confirmed to be infected.

He Zhenyu, deputy director of the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said preliminary tests indicated that the infection cases involved the Omicron variant, which is more infectious and spreads faster.

"Now the Omicron variant has replaced Delta as the dominant strain imported from abroad and involved in the outbreaks on the mainland," he said.

He urged people who had close contact with the confirmed cases or visited the public venues where the infected people had gone to inform the authorities and be screened.

Meanwhile, in Beijing, authorities reiterated that they would spare no effort to continue the strategy of fighting imported cases and a rebound in local cases in the months to come. The capital reported four new local cases in the first 11 hours of Tuesday.

Liu Xiaofeng, deputy director of the Beijing Center for Disease Prevention and Control, said all of the cases involved company employees who had attended the cosmetics company's training session in Wuhan and their family members.

Two cases were reported in Fengtai district, one in Haidian and another in Xicheng, and they tested positive when they returned to Beijing after the training, Liu added. Notably, all had negative results in tests conducted in Wuhan before returning to Beijing.

Qingdao, Shandong province, also confirmed a new local infection case on Tuesday. The patient had flown back to the coastal city from Wuhan on Monday morning and tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday, the local health commission reported on Tuesday.

Liu Kun contributed to this story.