Woman once clear of virus catches it later

A 67-year-old Chinese woman surnamed Yin, who returned to Shenyang, Liaoning province, from the Republic of Korea on Nov 29, was diagnosed as a suspected COVID-19 case on Wednesday, 10 days after she was released from a 14-day quarantine, the city's epidemic prevention and control office announced in a news release on Wednesday.

Shenyang immediately launched its emergency response protocols to take scientific steps and strict measures to contain the spread, entering a "state-of-war" for epidemic prevention and control, the announcement said.

The city carried out intensive screening of Yin's close contacts. To date, 71 close contacts and 69 secondary close contacts have been identified and transferred to the designated quarantine location for medical observation and nucleic acid testing.

As soon as she arrived at Taoxian International Airport in Shenyang on Nov 29, Yin took a nucleic acid test, which came back negative.

Since all those who arrived in Shenyang from abroad should be quarantined for two weeks, she was transferred to a designated hotel.

During that time, the results of her nucleic acid test and serum antibody test showed negative, and she left on Dec 13.

At 8 pm on Tuesday, Yin went to the fever clinic of the First Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University. At 2:40 am, the hospital diagnosed her as a suspected case.

The city's center for disease control and prevention collected biological specimens for nucleic acid testing and the result was positive.