On 23rd, March, Li Keqiang, standing member of the CPC Central Political Bureau, premier of the State Council and head of the Central Leading Group of the CPC Central Committee on Coping with the Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia Outbreak, chaired a meeting of the leading group.
Wang Huning, standing member of the CPC Central Political Bureau and deputy head of the leading of the CPC Central Committee on coping with the novel coronavirus outbreak, were in attendance.
The meeting underlined the earnest implementation of Xi’s important instructions to coordinate epidemic control with socioeconomic development. Currently, the spread of domestically transmitted epidemic has been basically blocked, but the risks of sporadic cases and regional outbreaks still exist. It is necessary to have a sober mind as the global pandemic situation remains complex and severe. We should adopt a general containment strategy that prevents both the import of cases and the domestic rebound of the outbreak in order to secure the hard-won outcomes already achieved. The outbreak epicenter province of Hubei and the city of Wuhan should continue treating ill patients, promptly admitting new cases and conducting epidemiological investigations. Local authorities must make information public in a transparent manner, refrain from concealing or underreporting new cases and come up with targeted containment measures once new cases are detected. China will commit to facilitating the commercial procurement of epidemic containment materials from other countries and ensuring the quality of exported products in contributing to the global fight against COVID-19. The country’s diplomatic missions overseas and related authorities must ensure the protection of Chinese citizens overseas and help them guard against the epidemic.
The meeting noted that more work should be done to actively encourage enterprises and institutions to resume work and production in an orderly manner. We should make great efforts to restore people’s normal work and life in low-risk provinces. Provincial areas with sustained low-risk of transmission must restore normal socioeconomic order by adjusting or canceling containment measures that are no longer necessary. The practice of requiring business to obtain approvals or file for records before getting back to work must be phased out. Unreasonable curbs that restrict individuals from other provincial areas from returning to their jobs must be canceled, and self-isolation is no longer required for employees, except those from high or medium-level risk areas. Local regions and units should hold accountable for ventilating and disinfecting work places, conducting health monitoring and protecting employees. Moreover, they should remain setting up fever clinic and preliminary-check triage, and response for emergency to keep prevention process unimpeded with early detection, early reporting, early isolation and early treatment. The country will reopen roads between rural and urban areas and restore public transport services across the board while ensuring that logistics parks, freight stations and express delivery networks can fully resume services on the condition that adequate epidemic prevention measures are put in place. Departments at various regions should step up coordinated efforts to cope with difficulties in the prevention and control of the epidemic, resumption of work and people’s daily life. It is encouraged to make concrete efforts and seek for real effects by avoiding formalism and bureaucracy.
The meeting required that the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council should guide local authorities to hold accountable for their regions, and engage with Hubei province to send people grounded in Hubei to their hometowns and Hubei’s workers to their posts.
Members of the leading group, including Ding Xuexiang, Huang Kunming, Cai Qi, Wang Yi, Xiao Jie and Zhao Kezhi, also attended the meeting.