COVID cases in Dalian traced to cold-chain cargo

The latest round of new COVID-19 cases in Dalian, Liaoning province was ignited by five dockworkers unloading imported contaminated cold-chain cargo from a Russia-owned ship, a local health official said at a news conference on Sunday.

Full virus gene sequencing results showed, based on confirmed COVID-19 cases, asymptomatic cases, related environment and cargo samples is highly homologous with the strain circulating in Russia in November and has strong genetic correlation, said Zhao Lian, deputy director of Dalian's health commission.

Since the port city reported its first four asymptomatic cases on Dec 15, it reported 48 confirmed cases and 30 asymptomatic cases as of Saturday.

The first five cases are all porters working at Dalian Port. The virus was then transmitted to their family members, merchants and customers at a department store, residents of their communities and other close contacts.

According to Zhao, the sources of the 75 cases have been traced and a newly identified family of three is in the process of being traced.