passengers on a flight from Singapore to Hangzhou in China. This study aimed to investigate the source of the outbreak and assess the risk of transmission of COVID-19 during the flight. Method: Using a standardized questionnaire, we collected information on the travelers' demographic characteristics and illness before, during, and after the flight. We also collected data on factors potentially associated with COVID-19 transmission during the flight. Results: A total of 16 COVID-19 patients were diagnosed among all passengers; the overall attack rate was 4.8%. The attack rate among passengers who had departed from Wuhan was significantly higher than that among those who had departed from other places. One passenger without an epidemiological history of exposure before boarding developed COVID-19. During the flight, he was seated near four infected passengers from Wuhan for approximately an hour and did not wear his facemask correctly during the flight. Conclusions: COVID-19 transmission may have occurred during the flight. However, the majority of the cases in the flight-associated outbreak could not be attributed to transmission on the flight but were associated with exposure to the virus in Wuhan or to infected members in a single tour group.

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A two-year field experiment was conducted in 2007 and 2008 to investigate different bell pepper responses to subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) and surface drip irrigation (DI) under four nitrogen levels: 0, 75, 150, and 300 kg/ha N (N 0 , N 75 , N 150 , and N 300 , respectively). Irrigation interval was set at 4 days. Bell pepper yield under SDI was significantly higher than that under DI by 4% in 2007 (13% in 2008). Water consumption under SDI was lower than that under DI by 6.7% in 2007 (7.3% in 2008). Meanwhile, root length density under SDI was obviously higher than that under DI by 11.8% in 2007 (12.5% in 2008). The percentage of root length below 10-cm soil depth under SDI was higher than that under DI by 7%, proving that SDI promotes crop root growth and enhances downward root development. Soil N residue under SDI was lesser than that under DI. Lastly, SDI with N application of 150 kg/ha is recommended as an optimal fertigation practice in improving bell pepper yield and water-use efficiency, as well as in NO 3 --N leaching.

We describe the isolation of Laribacter hongkongensis in Hangzhou City, People's Republic of China. One strain of bacterium, named LHHZ242, had many of the same phenotypic and genotypic characteristics as Laribacter hongkongensis described in previous publications. This discovery proves that Laribacter hongkongensis is also associated with community-acquired gastroenteritis outside Hong Kong.Laribacter hongkongensis was first isolated from the blood and empyemic pus of a 57-year-old Chinese man with alcoholic cirrhosis and bacterial thoracic empyema in Hong Kong in 2001. Thereafter, this newly discovered bacterium was isolated from the stools of three Asian patients and three European patients with community-acquired diarrhea in Hong Kong (5). This bacillus is a facultative anaerobic, motile, non-spore forming, nonfermentative, urease positive, gram negative, and seagull shaped and belongs to the family Neisseriaceae of the ␤ subclass of the class Proteobacteria (7). Patrick Woo and colleagues reported on a case-control study that showed the presence of an association between L. hongkongensis and community-acquired diarrhea, the consumption of fish, and travel (6). No reports of the isolation of L. hongkongensis outside Hong Kong in the past 5 years have yet been published. In order to determine whether Laribacter hongkongensis is related to some community-acquired cases of gastroenteritis outside of Hong Kong, a study was carried out with patients with communityacquired gastroenteritis in Hangzhou First People's Hospital in the city of Hangzhou, People's Republic of China, by using modified cefoperazone MacConkey (Mϩ) agar.All fecal swabs in our study were freshly collected from outpatients with community-acquired diarrhea in an outpatient service at Hangzhou First People's Hospital from August to November 2005. The specimens were directly inoculated in six culture agars: xylosine-lysine-deoxycholate (XLD) agar, thiosulfate-citrate-bile salts-sucrose (TCBS) agar, salmonellashigella (SS) agar, campylobacter blood-free selective agar (CCDA), MacConkey agar, and Mϩ agar. Modified cefoperazone MacConkey agar was cefoperazone MacConkey agar (1) in which the original concentration was reduced by 50% (final cefoperazone concentration, 16 mg/liter). The cultures were incubated under aerobic conditions at 37°C for 48 h on XLD, TCBS, SS, and Mϩ agars. The CCDA cultures were incubated in 5 to 10% CO 2 at 37°C for 48 h. Small and colorless colonies that grew on MacConkey and Mϩ agars but that did not grow on XLD agar, TCBS agar, SS agar, or CCDA or that grew very poorly on those agars were picked out. Among these bacterial colonies, all oxidase-, arginine-, and urease-positive bacteria were screened out.Among 275 stool samples tested, one strain of bacterium, named LHHZ242, that was positive by the oxidase, arginine, and Christensen urea agar tests was isolated from the stool of one patient. It was a seagull-shaped, gram-negative, and non-sporeforming bacterium that grew on Mϩ agar as a colorless colony 1 mm in diameter. T...

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