The variant was found during the genome sequencing of samples collected from a 67-year-old man under home quarantine in the city, said Chen Bin, deputy head of the Guangzhou municipal health commission.

The man arrived in Guangzhou on December 11 after coming back from an overseas destination on November 27 and undergoing a 14-day quarantine in another city. He had been sent to a designated hospital after testing positive for Covid-19 on December 13.

As of Tuesday noon, a total of 184 close contacts and 865 secondary close contacts had been traced and nucleic acid test results on these people were negative.