The Shanghai Pudong International Airport has streamlined the quarantine and management of staff members handling international travelers and imported goods.

All airport personnel who come in contact with passengers and cargo from overseas are undergoing seven days of quarantine at designated hotels and another seven days of home quarantine after working continuously for two weeks.

The staff under such management mainly include porters and vouching clerks who have to touch yet-to-be-disinfected overseas cargo; loaders and service staff working on the tarmac; personnel who need to enter the cabin of international flights or contact with foreign crew members; as well as quarantine staff boarding the aircraft to conduct inspections.

So far seven staffers from the foreign cargo aircraft area of the airport have been confirmed with COVID-19 since August 20.

After doing genetic sequencing and other investigations, the city's disease control and prevention authorities found that all the seven patients had been exposed to persons or environments bearing the overseas virus.

Designated shuttle buses take the airport staff at risk between the workplace and designated living places during the 14-day workdays.

"I cannot take public transport and must take the shuttle bus to work every day," one of the airport staff members said.

"Regular nucleic acid tests are being conducted every day," he added.

During every 28-day work and quarantine shift, each staff member has to take 22 nucleic acid tests.

The front-line workers of cargo stations, airlines and other service companies at the airport have also been included in the closed-loop management.

More than 1,000 company employees are living in centralized quarantine places. The coverage of quarantine measures has been extended from those contacting frozen imported cargo to all cargo from abroad, according to a logistic firm based at the airport.

The cargo station has been classified into red, yellow and green sections according to the risk levels. Specialized dressing rooms, resting sites and dining rooms have been set up.

An official in charge of the cargo station said the workers have been under great mental and physical stress amid the current COVID-19 outbreak and scorching weather.

"The workers have to work in intense weather wearing the heavy hazmat suits," the official said. "Their undergarments get fully soaked at least thrice a day."

Pudong airport has been handling about one-third of the international flights and travelers as well as half of the international freight in the country since the coronavirus outbreak. It operated more than 1,500 daily flights during the summer aviation season through the end of October last year, the same as that of 2019.

The Shanghai Airport Authority has said that passenger flights at Pudong airport have not been affected by the new COVID-19 cases detected in the cargo transport section of the airport.

As a key operation principle, Pudong airport has strictly separated passenger and cargo flights as well as international and domestic flights. Strict protection and "closed-loop" management measures are being taken for people and the airport's environment, the airport authority said.