Farmers returning home for spring farming line up to board a chartered bus at a highway exit in Changchun City, Northeast China's Jilin Province, April 12, 2022. Northeast China's Jilin Province, a major grain producer now fighting a COVID-19 outbreak, is issuing travel passes for farmers and sending them to farmland in chartered buses. By Sunday evening, around 100,000 farmers had reached their destinations.(Photo: Xinhua)

Northeast China's Jilin Province has achieved the goal of COVID clearance in its communities, according to a press conference on Thursday. Changchun, capital of Jilin Province, has cleared all its COVID-19 cases in its communities after 45 days of a hard battle against the Omicron outbreak. This means all the cities and prefectures in the province have achieved the goal of zero new cases in communities.

The new cases reported in Baicheng, Liaoyuan and Meihekou were all under quarantine and controlled personnel, while Siping has had no new cases for several consecutive days.

The city of Jilin (namesake of the province) in the province has started to gradually resume work and life routines after the city achieved zero-COVID status at the community level on Friday.

Another 325 local confirmed cases in the province were found on Wednesday along with 674 asymptomatic local cases, all of which have been put under quarantine and treatment in designated medical institutions.

According to Zhao Qinglong, deputy director of the emergency department of the Centers for Disease Control in Jilin Province, zero-COVID status at the community level means that all the confirmed or asymptomatic cases have been found among people under quarantine and the transmission risk has been effectively controlled.

But zero-COVID status is not equal to zero transmission risk, Zhao said, adding that the risk can be largely eliminated only when restrictions are lifted from all areas under lockdown and management.

Jilin Province vows to coordinate epidemic prevention and control with economic and social development, eliminate the epidemic and resume production and normal life, officials said at Thursday's press conference.

The province will continue to adhere to the dynamic zero-case policy and further improve its epidemic prevention and control capacity.

The province will supervise key regions to improve their nucleic acid testing plans, urge local governments to integrate medical resources between designated hospitals and makeshift hospitals, make proper arrangements for medical staff to take shifts so that they can rest, and further improve the treatment capacity of designated hospitals. 

Also, the province vows to guide the work and production resumption, business and school resumption in Changchun and Jilin cities.

Jilin Province is trying to realize the full clearance of COVID-19 cases as soon as possible, according to the press conference, while pushing forward an orderly life and work resumption at the community level.

The province will actively support China Faw Group Co - one of China's oldest and largest automotive manufacturers - and other leading enterprises to resume work and production in an orderly manner in batches, give priority to enterprises providing supplies for daily use, and gradually resume the business of consumer services that meet the requirements of epidemic prevention. 

To overcome the impact of the epidemic, the province will accelerate the return of farmers to their hometowns to ensure that not a single day of spring planting is missed. The local government will ensure this year's grain increase target is met in order to safeguard national food security.

Zhang Baozong, a senior official of the Jilin provincial government, said at a press briefing on Sunday that the reopening of life-necessities providers and timely spring farming are high priorities, emphasizing guarantees for spring-season agricultural activities, including financial support, transportation, electricity supply and fuel for farm machinery, to make sure the planting process won't be delayed, and all farmers and all their lands will be covered.

According to Zhang, 95.25 percent and 83.19 percent of the farm households across the province have received seeds and fertilizers used for spring planting.

Global Times