Man prosecuted in response to Beijing COVID-19 breakout

A defendant surnamed Yang, who rented a cold storage for imported frozen fish illegally, which later on caused a COVID-19 epidemic outbreak in Beijing's Fengtai and Fangshan districts earlier this year, was sentenced to one year and six months in prison by the district court on Tuesday.

The trading company, which let out the cold storage to Yang, was fined 200,000 yuan ($27,890) by the court, according to Beijing Daily.

From April to November in 2021, Yang imported frozen fish from Thailand and other places and stored them in the cold storages of the trade company in Beijing.

However, Yang had not submitted the nucleic acid tests results and disinfection certificates of the goods to the cold storage, nor did he disinfect the goods and shelves in the warehouse.

The trading company failed to verify the origin of the goods. It did not check the nucleic acid test results or disinfection certificates, and failed to disinfect and sterilize the environment and shelves in the warehouse during daily operation.

Yang also instructed others to replace the import label of the frozen fish with the label of a domestic company.

In January and February this year, Fangshan and Fengtai districts reported several positive COVID-19 cases, including the first case who was working for the cold storage for changing labels.

The packaging and environment of the goods in the two warehouses of the cold storage sites showed positive on their nucleic acid tests.

On Tuesday, Beijing market supervision body announced another case involving the COVID-19 epidemic control and prevention that a medical lab sold consumption coupons of the nucleic acid tests at a price higher than the government's guiding price.

The lab sold the nucleic acid test coupons at a price of 37.5 yuan per time while the government's guiding price was 24.9 yuan per time.

The business entities should not sell the service higher than the guiding price, said the authority.