File photo:Xinhua

Qingdao in East China's Shandong Province reported one locally-transmitted case of COVID-19 on Friday, the only new locally transmitted case across China in the last 24 hours, with the patient identified as a nurse working in a quarantine ward in a local hospital, according to the city's health commission.

The hospital is a designated venue for centralized handling of COVID-19 cases related to the Qingdao Chest Hospital, where the previous outbreak was traced to, and the infected nurse, 34, works in the quarantine ward in the facility. 

A total of 71 close contacts have been put under centralized medical observation.

A probe into the case by a national and city joint expert panel found that the infection was due to the nurse's accidental exposure during a medical operation. No systematic loopholes were found, however, in terms of hospital management, and the possibility of community infection has been ruled out.

Rushan, also in Shandong Province, reported traces of the novel coronavirus on the packaging of frozen pork products during a routine spot inspection of imported cold-chain foods on Thursday.

Since then, disinfection work has been conducted and nucleic acid tests and blood sampling have been completed for those who had come into close contact with the goods. No positive results for COVID-19 have been returned so far.