Toilet visit leads to around 40 infections in Beijing

A COVID-19 patient infected three people after going to the public toilet for three times, which later led to nearly 40 infections on the transmission chain during the ongoing outbreaks in Beijing, a senior health official said.

Pang Xinghuo, deputy director of the Beijing CDC, urged people to wear the masks with better protection level and clean hands properly when going to public toilets.

She said Beijing still has hidden infection risks at the community level, which requires the authority to accelerate the mass nucleic acid testings to curb the transmission.

She particularly reminded the public to wear N95 or KN95 masks when going to hospital, visiting the senior people and infants, fetching deliveries or packages, and going to crowded areas, in order to avoid infection risks.

Beijing reported 53 new locally transmitted confirmed cases between 3 pm on Monday and 3 pm on Tuesday, bringing the total number of infections to 453 since April 22 and involve 14 districts, according to the Beijing CDC on Tuesday.

Among the new infections, 50 were reported from the controlled zones and three were found during the nucleic acid testings at communities, said Pang.

Of the total 453 infections during the latest outbreak, Chaoyang district registered 183 cases, followed by Fangshan district, which has reported 117 cases by Tuesday since April 22.

During the same period, Tongzhou district reported 46 cases and Fengtai district 31 cases, she added.

Due to increasing number of COVID-19 cases, two more residential communities -- one in Chaoyang and one in Fangshan, were designated as high-risk areas starting on Tuesday.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Beijing had 12 high-risk areas for COVID-19 and 34 medium-risk areas.