Medical staff collect swabs from a resident for COVID-19 nucleic acid testing in Zhenhai county on December 7, 2021 in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, China.
Hu Xuejun | Visual China Corporation | beautiful pictures
BEIJING – Mainland China reported its first case of the omicron Covid variant on Monday in the city of Tianjin, about a two-hour drive from the capital Beijing.
The omicron case was found in a traveler from abroad, who had no symptoms but tested positive on Thursday, according to Tianjin’s local health commission. The commission said the patient is being treated in isolation at a hospital.
On Monday, the UK reported first publicly confirmed death globally from the omicron variant. New variant defined – first reported in South Africa late November – is highly transmissible and mutated, and has raised concerns about the effectiveness of the existing coronavirus vaccine.
Covid-19 first emerged in mainland China in late 2019. The country brought the outbreak under control within a few months, but in the meantime the virus has become a global pandemic.
Mainland China has only reported Covid-19 cases in the past 18 months, as Beijing pursues a tough “zero tolerance” policy, which could mean sudden or limited residential closures. travel restriction. The latest relapsed Covid cases are concentrated in Inner Mongolia and the southeastern part of the country.
The mainland health commission reported a total of 51 locally confirmed cases on Monday, and 25 cases attributed to travelers from abroad, with no new deaths.
