Residents undergo nucleic acid testing in Southwest China's Chongqing on November 20, 2022. Photo: IC

The situation in Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality allows no delay in taking firm and decisive measures to concentrate on winning the battle against the latest COVID-19 epidemic, Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan said during her recent inspection of the municipality on Monday, noting that impact on economic and social development and people's livelihoods should be minimized to the maximum extent possible. 

Chongqing registered 178 confirmed local patients and 6,157 asymptomatic carriers on Monday. As many as 627 among the total 6,335 infections were identified at the community level and an accumulated over 40,000 infections have been reported in the city since November 1, according to the local health authority.

With coordinated prevention and control across the city and strengthened control at the community level over the past 10 days, proportion of new infections discovered in communities has been declining apparently but the total infections remains on an upward trend, Li Pan, deputy director of the Chongqing Municipality Health Commission, said during a press briefing on Monday evening, adding that a decisive battle to clamp down the epidemic in the downtown area had started on Sunday, according to media reports. 

Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan inspected COVID-19 epidemic control work in virus-hit Chongqing on November 21, urging swift and decisive measures to take to find positive infections and close contacts in accordance with the 20 optimized measures in order to stop the transmission chains faster, contain the spread of the epidemic and minimize the impact of the epidemic on economic and social development and on people's livelihoods.

According to Sun, positive progress has been made in the epidemic prevention and control work in Chongqing, where the epidemic had already spreading widely. However, the epidemic prevention and control situation remains complex and grim as case number continue to climb. 

Sun noted scientific and precise epidemic control and prevention work under the dynamic zero-COVID strategy, and better and classified resource coordination, firm and decisive measures to win the battle against the virus and achieve zero cases at the community level as soon as possible. 

Sun also stressed onsite epidemiological investigation to accurately demarcate risk areas and strictly manage risk areas to assure the normal operation of the core functions of the city.

Global Times