Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei to remain at highest level of response to outbreak

Beijing will stay vigilant to the novel coronavirus epidemic by maintaining a first-level emergency response mechanism against the virus, a senior city official said on Thursday.

Besides Hubei province, the hardest-hit region amid the COVID-19 epidemic in the country, only Beijing, Tianjin and North China’s Hebei province are still sticking to first-level emergency response against the novel coronavirus.

Chen Bei, deputy secretary-general of Beijing municipal government, said Thursday that Beijing must adopt strict and practical anti-virus measures, as imported cases still rage across the border and the reopening of lockdown accelerates population flow over the country.

"Beijing, as the capital of China, has specific functions with special influence, which prompts us to impose tightened and feasible measures in epidemic prevention and control," Chen said.

She added that the capacity to screen out COVID-19 patients needs to be improved by conducting certain epidemiological investigations.

"In recent moves, we also expanded the scope of people who have to receive nucleic acid tests in the capital, to detect and treat the infected early," she said.

As epidemic prevention and control in the capital will likely be a long-term normal, Beijing will minimize the population flow across the city and continuously stay in a safe and orderly manner, Chen said.

Beijing had activated the first-level emergency response to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus on Jan 24. By Jan 30, all 31 provincial-level regions on the Chinese mainland had activated first-level emergency response.

China's public health alert system is categorized into four levels in terms of an incident’s nature, extent of harm and scope: Level-I (Extremely significant), Level-II (Significant), Level-III (Major) and Level-IV (Normal).

Under the first-level emergency response, the local government is responsible for organizing, coordinating and handling all the emergency public health treatments, information disclosure, and collecting emergency materials and building facilities, under the guidance of the State Council, China’s Cabinet.

Shanghai lifted the first-level emergency response on March 24 and lowered the city’s emergency response level to the second level, down from the most severe.

As of April 1, six provincial-level regions on the Chinese mainland had adjusted the emergency response level to the second level, and 19 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions had lowered to or maintained the third-level emergency response to the epidemic, with two staying at the fourth-level emergency response, according to a Caixin report.