SH vows no discrimination against recovered COVID-19 job seekers

An expatriate gives an oral swab sample for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test in Qibao Town, Minhang District, in Shanghai.

The Shanghai government has pledged equal career opportunities to recovered COVID-19 patients after some job hunters complained about discrimination due to their infection history.

All local government departments and companies should treat the recovered COVID-19 positive cases equally without discrimination as stipulated by law, Shanghai spokeswoman Yin Xin told the city's COVID-19 press briefing on Monday.

"Society should give them more care and love, rather than label them or set barriers in their work and life and let them live in the shadows," Yin stressed.

The topic went viral on social media after some recovered coronavirus patients, especially migrant workers, complained that they had been rejected by multiple employers, because they were once infected or worked at local makeshift hospitals as volunteers.

China's Employment Promotion Law and Infectious Disease Prevention and Control Law stipulate that employers cannot turn down or discriminate against patients, suspects or carriers of infectious diseases as long as they had recovered and were not suspected of being infected, according to Yin.

China's Supreme Court and the Human Resources and Social Security Ministry have also stipulated that employers cannot dismiss employees on ground that they were COVID-19 patients, suspects, asymptomatic cases, had been under quarantine or came from places with severe pandemic, she added.

PCR testing staff use ice cubes to cool themselves amid scorching temperatures in Shanghai.

Shanghai reported three community COVID-19 cases on Monday while adding three more high-risk areas.

The one confirmed case in mild condition and two asymptomatic cases, aged between 40 and 59 years, live in Xinhua Road Subdistrict of Changning District and Nanmatou Road Subdistrict of the Pudong New Area. They had taken two courses of the COVID-19 vaccine.

According to epidemiological investigation, they had been to a bank, exhibition center, cafe, park, wet market, restaurant and drugstore as well as two 4S stores.

Their accommodations, including a hotel in Pudong, have been elevated to high-risk areas.

There are currently 16 high-risk areas in Shanghai, mostly the living and working places of the positive cases, along with some 180 medium-risk areas, or the places the infections have paid visits to and posed transmission risks.

Shanghai reported a total of 319 positive cases between July 3 and 10, 70 percent of them asymptomatic cases, during a resurgence centered on an illegally reopened karaoke lounge at 148 Lanxi Road in Putuo District.

Over 95 percent of the cases, mostly found under central quarantine, had links with the KTV in Putuo. More than 320,000 related people have received nucleic acid screening, according to Yuan Zheng'an, a member of the city's COVID-19 experts' team.

Shanghai added three additional high-risk areas in Changning District and the Pudong New Area on Monday.

Home quarantine standard beefed up

Meanwhile, local authorities will tighten quarantine measures for people coming from overseas after several imported cases tested positive during or after home quarantine recently.

The quarantine period remains the same. Those from overseas are subject to a weeklong central quarantine and three days of home quarantine after arriving in Shanghai.

However, local districts and subdistricts are required to more strictly evaluate the conditions of their local accommodations to check whether they are eligible for home quarantine.

If the apartments had bad ventilation or they cannot live privately, they must spend the following three days in central quarantine as well, said Zeng Qun, deputy director of the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau.

A Croatian tested positive during home quarantine on Monday after finishing the weeklong central quarantine. He arrived at Shanghai's Pudong airport on June 29 and had been under closed-loop management since then.

On Sunday, an American tested positive after finishing the full 10-day central and home quarantines after arriving on June 23 from the United States.

Shanghai reported three community infections on Monday.