The individual, who worked as a salesman promoting health products for the elderly, traveled from his home province of Heilongjiang to neighboring Jilin province, taking the virus with him.
Authorities say he unknowingly spread the virus to elderly residents for several days before being tracked by health officials as a close contact in a confirmed case.
“The superspread phenomenon occurred in our province mainly because when superspread was discovered, it was still in the early stages of its infection and had a relatively strong ability to transmit the virus,” said Zhao Qinglong, a disease control and prevention official. Jilin province center, told the state news agency Xinhua.
The apparent over-spreading event in Jilin occurred while China was battling its worst coronavirus outbreak in months, which saw hundreds of reported cases and tens of millions of people put under lockdown in its northern provinces.
He also demonstrated the extent and speed of contact tracking and screening by Chinese health officials, who played a crucial role in controlling local outbreaks.
Detailed itinerary and privacy issues
The seller was diagnosed as a confirmed case of Covid-19 on Sunday after he was initially identified as an asymptomatic carrier last Tuesday, according to the Jilin provincial health commission. China reports asymptomatic infections separately from its official case count.
For four days, the man held four “health seminars”, or marketing sessions, at community health clubs aimed at elderly residents in the cities of Gongzhuling and Tonghua in Jilin.
All infected people were screened as close contacts to the man and quarantined, before the test was positive during medical observation, Zhang said.
Although it is an effective tool for tracking contacts, disclosing the travel history of patients with coronavirus has also raised privacy concerns in China.
Community health clubs under scrutiny
Jilin’s apparent over-spreading event brought community academies under greater scrutiny by health experts and authorities.
“The infected people were gathered in an enclosed space for a long time,” Zhao, Jilin’s health officer, told Xinhua. “Most of them are middle-aged and elderly people with underlying health problems and weak immunity and are therefore extremely susceptible to infections.”
So-called “fitness centers” for the elderly are becoming increasingly common among residential communities in China, where marketing sessions, often called “health talks”, are held regularly to promote health products, such as supplements. and physiotherapy equipment.
Unlike cinemas, restaurants, karaoke and other commercial locations, these clubs are often hidden in residential buildings and are difficult to regulate by authorities, according to Xinhua.
Jilin officials are investigating whether the two academies where the man held promotions violated any regulations, a provincial market surveillance official said at the news conference.