A new CCP virus outbreak in Dalian city, in northeastern China, has spread to at least six cities and counties in three provinces since authorities confirmed a cluster of infections late last week.
Dalian municipal authorities reported on its website 13 new confirmed cases in Liaoning as of late July 25. Among these new cases, 12 were asymptomatic carriers in Dalian and one carrier in Tieling, a city located about 260 miles northeast of Dalian. The Chinese regime counts them separately from those who exhibit symptoms.
But the authorities’ swiftness in enacting strict isolation measures has led locals to suspect that the outbreak was more severe than officially reported.
The Dalian Metro also required that all passengers be tested for the virus before boarding at stations along one of its three lines.
Despite the tough measures, the virus has spread beyond Dalian to infect people elsewhere. On July 24, municipal authorities in Anshan city, located about 170 miles northeast of Dalian, reported a newly infected female patient surnamed Gao.
Gao came into contact with infected people in Dalian and returned to Anshan on July 17, and was confirmed positive on July 24 after two tests, according to the Anshan government website.
On July 26, the municipal government in Tieling reported that a 55-year-old infected woman surnamed Wang, who worked at a food processing company in Dalian, was being isolated for treatment at a local hospital.
Wang came into contact with an infected coworker and returned to her home in Tieling on July 21. Her infection was confirmed on July 25.
The virus has also spread to the nearby province of Jilin, and farther north into Heilongjiang Province.
The provincial health commission in Heilongjiang reported on July 24 that two local asymptomatic carriers came into contact with infected individuals in Dalian: a 48-year-old male surnamed Cai, a resident of Hegang city, Heilongjiang, who left Dalian on July 18 and returned on July 21; and a 51-year-old woman surnamed Ding, who left Dalian on July 16 and returned to Hailun city, Heilongjiang, the same day.
Local health officials in Jilin reported two local infection cases that were traced to the outbreak in Dalian. An infected man surnamed Zhong recently returned home to Yitong, a county in western Jilin Province, from Dalian, while an unidentified woman who worked at the Dalian-based Kaiyang seafood company returned home to Changchun, the capital of Jilin, on July 19. She tested positive for the virus on July 24.
The Dalian city government has claimed that the seafood company was the source of the latest outbreak, saying the virus was found on the packaging of frozen seafood in cold storage. There’s no current evidence that the CCP virus can be spread through contaminated food.
Several locals in Dalian recently spoke to the Chinese-language Epoch Times about the new restrictions in place since the outbreak was announced.
Incoming patients at the Dalian No. 2 Hospital can be hospitalized only if they have tested negative for the virus, a staff member said, while a restaurant owner in Dalian says many stores near the Dalian Bay, where the seafood company is located, have closed; he says he doesn’t know when he can reopen his business.
Jiang Wen (a pseudonym), who runs a hotel near the Dalian Sports Center Stadium, said several local quarantine centers—typically where close contacts of confirmed patients are isolated and observed for any symptoms—are filled up.
The stadium is one of the venues for Chinese soccer’s Super League (CSL), which restarted its season on July 25; CSL games currently aren’t open to the public.
Jiang said one of the local hotels housing CSL players was restricting personnel exiting or entering the hotel for a month before the games resumed, to ensure that the facility wouldn’t be contaminated before players moved in.
