Local authorities in Chengdu, located in China's western Sichuan province, identified three new COVID-19 patients on Tuesday, and the local police launched an investigation after the identity of one of the newly detected patients was leaked online
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 08th December, 2020) Local authorities in Chengdu, located in China's western Sichuan province, identified three new COVID-19 patients on Tuesday, and the local police launched an investigation after the identity of one of the newly detected patients was leaked online.
After an elderly couple was confirmed to have contracted COVID-19 on Monday, three more infected patients were identified on Tuesday as close contacts of the infected couple were being tested, the local government said in a statement on its official Weibo account on Tuesday.
According to the statement, two of the newly detected patients were elderly neighbors of the infected couple and the third patient was the 20-year-old granddaughter of the couple.
However, shortly after local authorities revealed the three new COVID-19 cases, the young female patient's real name and personal details began to be circulated on Chinese social media.
According to the widely circulated social media posts, the 20-year-old female patient visited her grandparents on December 2 and had dinner with them for 30 minutes. Afterward, she never met with her grandparents who were confirmed to be infected on Monday.
Commentators on Weibo expressed anger over the leaked information, alleging the girl had visited movie theaters and went to bars for two nights in a row on Saturday and Sunday, when she knew her grandparents were being tested for COVID-19.
In response to the new COVID-19 outbreak, local authorities in Chengdu locked down the neighborhood where the old couple lived and initiated mass testing of possible contacts of the confirmed patients, including customers of the restaurants, movie theaters and bars that the 20-year-old patient reportedly visited.
The local police in Chengdu has launched investigation after the young girl's personal details were leaked online, the Paper, a Shanghai-based newspaper, reported on Tuesday.
Local authorities dismissed rumors that a number of universities in the city were under lockdown because of possible contacts with the infected patients.
