Coronavirus fight remains challenging

Key Party meeting calls for full vigilance in control, prevention tasks to avoid risks

The novel coronavirus epidemic in Hubei province is still complicated and challenging, a key Party meeting concluded on Wednesday as it drew attention to the risks of the epidemic rebounding in other areas.

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, presided over the meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee in which members listened to a report by the leading group of the CPC Central Committee on coping with the epidemic outbreak and discussed key related tasks.

At the meeting, Xi and other members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee donated money to support epidemic control.

While the positive momentum of the overall epidemic situation is expanding and economic and social development is recovering, it is still necessary to remain vigilant in epidemic control, Xi said.

He urged strengthened leadership by the CPC Central Committee in order to provide proper guidance for decisions and work in all respects.

Party committees and governments at all levels should promote epidemic control work and economic and social development in a balanced way, Xi said.

He required efforts to ensure victory in the battle against the virus and fulfill the goals of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and eliminating absolute poverty in China.

Meeting participants stressed the need to concentrate efforts and resources to strengthen epidemic control in Hubei and its capital, Wuhan, to control the source of infection and cut off transmission routes.

Communities should be mobilized to help guarantee the delivery of residents' basic life necessities and more effort should go into providing psychological counseling, participants said.

It was stressed at the meeting that high-level medical teams and multidisciplinary experts should coordinate work to overcome difficulties and save critically ill patients. Also, patients with mild symptoms should receive early treatment to avoid becoming critically ill.

The meeting called for greater efficiency in allocating and delivering medical protective materials so that urgently needed materials can be sent to the front line as soon as possible.

Epidemic prevention work in key regions such as Beijing should be strengthened to resolutely block infections of all kinds, participants said. They also required stricter measures to prevent outside infection sources from entering locations with a high population density and closed environment, where people are more vulnerable to infections, such as nursing homes and mental health institutions.

Front-line workers, personnel in direct contact with medical waste and service personnel working in confined spaces should take targeted preventive measures, it said.

Party committees and governments at all levels should supervise enterprises and public institutions to strictly carry out epidemic control rules and help them solve shortages of preventive materials through coordination, the meeting said.

It also called for scientific and targeted measures to handle individual cases of infection that occurred during the resumption of work and production. All preferential policies for enterprises should be put into place as soon as possible to facilitate services regarding the resumption of work and production, and red tape should be reduced, it was decided.

Participants also stressed the importance of strengthening international cooperation on epidemic control, which is the responsibility of a major global player. It is also part of China's efforts to build a community with a shared future for mankind, they said.

China will continue to conduct close cooperation with the World Health Organization, keep close communications with related countries and share experience of epidemic control, the meeting said.