Haikou COVID-19 case virus gene sequencing highly consistent with imported case

The latest analysis and comparison of gene sequencing results by the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention showed the virus gene sequencing results of the second confirmed COVID-19 case in Haikou, capital city of South China's Hainan province, were highly consistent with the test results of an imported case from Russia, according to officials with Haikou COVID-19 prevention and control headquarters.

It can be preliminarily determined that the virus that infected a 38-year-old male worker at Meilan International Airport Cargo, the second newly confirmed case in Hainan, originated from the inbound cargo flight from Russia at the Haikou airport, officials said at a news conference on Monday.

The case of the airport worker, surnamed Lin, raised Haikou's newly confirmed count to two. The first case, a female patient, was confirmed on Aug 1. There was no overlap in their movements, according to the city's health authorities. Both are under treatment at Hainan Provincial People's Hospital and are in a stable condition, according to information released at the news conference.

Medical departments in Haikou conducted nucleic acid tests on 533,600 people in key track areas from Aug 5 to 8, and all results were negative, local officials said.

All international freight charter flights taking off and landing at Haikou Meilan International Airport have been suspended and the airport's international freight area has been tightly managed since Friday, after Lin's coronavirus test results came back positive on Thursday, airport authorities said.

Starting on Friday and Sunday, passengers must show their health codes and negative certificates for nucleic acid tests administered within 48 hours when entering or leaving Hainan's airports, ports and railway terminals, according to local transportation departments in Hainan.