The latest COVID-19 resurgence in Dalian, Liaoning province, in November, was triggered by crimes and concealment of the truth by a local cold chain enterprise, along with related institutions engaged in graft and or poor performance of their duty and serious dereliction of duty by regulators, according to officials at a meeting on Thursday at Dalian's headquarters office on prevention and control of the novel coronavirus.

The outbreak started when staff members at a cold storage company were infected by contaminated imported food, a preliminary investigation found.

The latest outbreak showed that the city's prevention and control processes are not tight, the implementation system has not formed a closed loop and the risk-prevention system does not match the governing capabilities of high-risk port cities, it found.

Dalian reported a new locally transmitted COVID-19 case on Nov 3.

As of Thursday, there had been no new cases found outside the quarantine area for 13 consecutive days with no cases spread outside of the city.