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SHANGHAI: China recorded 22 new COVID-19 infections on Nov. 23, up from 11 the day before, the country’s health authority said, while a Tianjin city official said two confirmed cases this month contracted the virus in North American pig heads. .
The National Health Commission said on Tuesday (November 24) that 20 of the new cases were imported infections that originated abroad. A local broadcast in Shanghai and another in Tianjin were reported.
The Shanghai case, along with a second previously reported in the city, dates back to a container from North America, which the two men cleaned up when it arrived at an airport, according to the Shanghai Daily.
The last infection in Tianjin was previously an asymptomatic case, according to state media.
Later on Tuesday, a Tianjin health official said that two confirmed cases in the northern port city earlier this month had contracted the virus from pig heads arriving from North America.
Zhang Ying, an official with the Tianjin Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told a news conference that authorities had not tested the pig heads in question.
However, the samples taken from the places where the heads fell when they were removed from storage tested positive for the same strain of the virus as the two confirmed cases, which had been exposed to the pig heads, Zhang said.
Tianjin authorities said earlier this month that they would conduct tests at some cold storage facilities and on staff after a coronavirus case involving a worker who had handled frozen pork imported from Germany. China says it has repeatedly detected the virus in imported meat and packaging.
The National Health Commission also reported eight new asymptomatic cases, which China does not classify as confirmed cases, as of Monday, compared with 10 the day before.
The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in mainland China now stands at 86,464, while the death toll stands at 4,634.
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