Tianjin man might have got the virus from colleague: city CDC

Tianjin's Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Tianjin CDC) said on Monday that a 22-year-old man working at the city's Conrad hotel might have caught COVID-19 from a colleague who had traveled to Beijing multiple times in a month. He is the city's latest case.

The colleague, a chef at the hotel, has shown no symptoms so far. The chef's antibody IgM testing came out positive but he's not yet a confirmed COVID-19 case. 

The case of the 22-year-old, reported on June 17 in the city, had raised speculation that it may have arisen from frozen food as the man had no travel history in the 14 days prior to the onset of his illness, nor contact history with confirmed or suspected cases.

The young man has washed dishes in the hotel since May 30, occasionally cleaning frozen seafood.

Tianjin CDC confirmed on Sunday that the gene sequence of this case was the same as the Beijing market that has been linked to a new cluster in the country's capital.