Photo:Global Times

More than 6,000 communities and villages of Shanghai have been engaged in identifying cases of novel coronavirus infection and serve people under quarantine, Zeng Qun, deputy director of the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau said during a press conference on Saturday. 

To reinforce the efforts, Shanghai has assigned government officials to work in conjunction with grassroots management personnel since Friday. According to Zeng, Fengxian district sent around 600 person-time to communities every day.

To make sure expats in the city learn about the latest updates and prevention measures of the epidemic control, Shanghai will publish the contents of its daily press conferences on the official website of Shanghai foreign Affairs Office in five languages, including Chinese, English, French, Japanese, and Korean, Yin Xin, director of the publicity department of Shanghai Information Office, said during the press conference.

Moreover, the office will answer queries from the citizen on the hotline 12345 and provide consultations on epidemic control to expats in the city from February 2. The service hours will be from 8 am to 8 pm every day. 

Zhang Qi, deputy director of Shanghai Municipal Administration of Culture and Tourism said the outbreak of novel coronavirus has hit the tourism industry hard, and thus encouraged travel agencies, suppliers, and individuals to negotiate with each other to minimize the loss.

Over 200,000 tourists to and from Shanghai canceled their group trips due to the novel coronavirus outbreak. 

Shanghai residents have to register to buy medical masks from February 2 to 11 to mitigate the city's current shortage of masks, Zeng announced.

The authority appealed the public to register at different hours and let those in urgent need register first. Registration space needs to undergo cleaning, ventilation and disinfection regularly.

As the number of used masks is increasing, those used in hospitals and quarantine spaces are required to be discarded as medical wastes, besides daily used masks need to be sealed in plastic bags and disposed of as dry garbage.

As of Saturday noon, a total of 169 confirmed cases of novel coronavirus were reported in Shanghai, with one death and six in critical condition. So far, 10 people have reportedly recovered while 166 suspected cases continue to be under observation.