A resident takes the nuceic acid testing in Changchun, Northeast China's Jilin Province on March 13, 2022 as the city has started a new round of citywide testing. Photo: VCG

 
Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan urged Northeast China's Jilin Province to take thorough measures to curb the virus spread, noting that epidemic prevention in Jilin has entered a crucial stage given the severe and complex situation. Sun said this during her visit to the province, which has seen over 1,000 daily infections for two days in a roll, a peak since the Wuhan outbreak in 2020. 

Sun asked Jilin authorities to speed up the screening of residents with a combination of nucleic acid and antigen testing, and locate the source of origin of this flare-up as soon as possible. 

Residents in high-risk areas must be put in centralized quarantine, while those in low-risk regions are asked to stay indoors for home quarantine. 

Key venues with high density of population, including schools, nursing homes and factories, should be strictly controlled to prevent another cluster infection, Sun said. 

While patients with symptoms are treated in designated hospitals, asymptomatic cases will be sent to mobile cabin hospitals and given traditional Chinese medicine to prevent them from developing into symptomatic ones. 

Zhang Zhijun, secretary of the Party committee of the provincial capital Changchun, vowed on Monday midnight that with the most resolute attitudes, the city will clear out COVID-19 infections in the shortest time possible. 

Zhang stressed that the local authority will publish relevant information in a timely manner in order to win the widest support from society.

Jilin Province registered more than 1,000 infections on Sunday, with 895 confirmed cases and 131 silent carriers. So far, a total of 2,947 confirmed cases and 1,658 asymptomatic cases are found in the province since March 1, involving at least seven cities within the province.

The defective emergency response in some regions accounted for the sharp rise of infections, the provincial government said on Sunday.

Changchun announced on Friday it would conduct three rounds of city-wide nucleic acid testing for COVID-19 starting from Friday. The city has also implemented the closed-loop management to ensure each resident undergoes nucleic acid testing.

Global Times