Supported by effective control measures, the latest COVID-19 outbreak in Dalian, Northeast China’s Liaoning Province, has limited impact on economic reopening and is expected to be cleared within a month, experts told the Global Times Monday.
The port city reported 14 confirmed and 12 asymptotic new cases of coronavirus Sunday, after a 58-year-old man working at a seafood processing company tested positive Wednesday, breaking the city’s streak of no COVID-19 cases for 111 days, city health authorities said.
Since the COVID-19 outbreak in Dalian, 79 infections have been reported covering four provinces in China as of Sunday – three provinces in northeast China and East China’s Fujian Province. Most cases were tracked back to Dalian Kaiyang Seafood Co, where the 58-year-old man engaged in the processing and cold storage of imported aquatic products was found to be the first confirmed case in the new outbreak.
The outbreak could deal a blow to the seafood industry in Dalian, a major seafood processing hub in China.
In 2019, the total import and export value of aquatic products in Dalian was 29.05 billion yuan ($4.15 billion), accounting for more than 10 percent of the national total.
Fan Xubing, president of Beijing Seabridge Marketing, a leading importer of seafood, told the Global Times Monday that most raw seafood imported to Dalian for processing comes from Japan and Russia, and some processed products are exported to South Korea. “So the outbreak might affect those exports to South Korea,” said Fan.
According to Cui He, president of the China Aquatic Products Processing and Marketing Alliance, the effect of the Dalian epidemic on the seafood industry as a whole will not last long.
“It might take about 10 days for this outbreak to ebb since it has been generally acknowledged that seafood itself doesn’t spread virus,” said Cui.
Referring to virus prevention and control experience in Beijing, experts believe that the epidemic in Dalian is likely to be controlled within a month thanks to the quick response of local government.
“The scale of the outbreak in Dalian is smaller compared with that in the Xinfadi wholesale market in Beijing, and the authorities’ precise and quick measures has reassured local residents and avoided panic,” Lü Chao, a research fellow at the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times Monday.
“So far, the epidemic’s impact on local economy is limited,” Lü said.
To further contain the spread of infections, Dalian has arranged for free nucleic acid tests for all residents, the city government said Sunday.
Yet, as a sightseeing city, the outbreak of COVID-19 in Dalian has obviously dented its tourism industry, which was just ready to resume after the nation announced that group tours could restart.
Tianshu travel agency in Dalian told the Global Times that most agencies in the city have suspended their businesses and the number of tourists to the city has slumped since last week.
Data from online travel information provider Qunar.com showed that flows to and from Dalian have dropped due to the sudden outbreak. Searches about going to the city declined 57 percent Sunday compared with 10 days ago and bookings are down by 80 percent.
File photo: Dalian airport
