Photo: CFP

Guangzhou, capital of South China's Guangdong Province, on Saturday launched citywide anti-COVID efforts and vowed to secure supplies of daily necessities in the face of COVID-19 community transmission risks. 

Guangzhou is taking all prevention and control measures including citywide nucleic acid testing to detect infected cases as soon as possible, Chen Bin, deputy director of Guangzhou's health commission, said during a press conference. 

Chen said Guangzhou will do everything possible to block the chain of transmission of COVID-19.

The city reported five local confirmed cases and five local asymptomatic infections on Friday. As of 8 am on Saturday, the city reported two new confirmed cases, according to the press conference briefing on Saturday.  

All 11 districts in Guangzhou have issued notices for nucleic acid testing of all residents on Friday and Saturday. 

COVID-19 community transmission may have occurred in the controlled areas in Guangzhou and may have spread to other areas, said Zhang Zhoubin, Party secretary of Guangzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention, adding that the city is facing a more severe situation than when it was battling the Delta variant last May.

The population of the related area in Baiyun District is relatively large and the density is relatively high and people in this area move more frequently across regions, Zhang said. The Omicron variant strain is more contagious, the risk of subsequent spread of the epidemic is extremely high, and prevention and control are extremely difficult, he said.

After the case in Baiyun district was first found in routine nucleic acid screening on Thursday, the local government has launched emergency responding mechanism. As of 9 am on Saturday, the district has finished testing 2.76 million people.

In May of last year, Guangzhou saw a round of flare-up driven by the Delta variant. With effective epidemic prevention measures, the city ended the outbreak in late June.

Officials said that the city has sufficient supplies of daily necessities with stable prices and called on the citizens to not panic.  

The city will take the mature community supply secure mechanism that was developed during the previous epidemic flare-up, which will set at least two supply sites for every bloc that are supported by related companies, officials said. 

Global Times