BEIJING: Central government officials on Thursday called for efforts to ramp up the detection capability for COVID-19 infections, fix the “short planks” in the country’s health system and wage a patriotic health movement to improve hygiene.
The directives came a month after central authorities declared at a key meeting of the top leadership on Feb 16 that the country had secured a “major, decisive victory” over the pandemic.
Liu Dechun, director of the National Development and Reform Commission’s resource conservation and environmental protection department, said local authorities need to make sure that COVID-19 cases can be detected, reported and treated early, and extra attention has to be paid to “key places” such as nursing homes, schools and farm produce markets. Local officials will also have to work to solve “weak links” such as those related to medications and medical devices, he said at a news conference in Beijing. Their supply tends to run low at small health institutions in the case of a health emergency.
The director said cleanup campaigns will also be carried out nationwide with a focus on backstreet alleys, old residential communities and shanty towns, and venues such as small eateries. The cleanup efforts will be part of the patriotic health campaign, which was first introduced in the 1950s to wipe out rats, flies, mosquitoes and other pests that carry and transmit infectious pathogens.
–The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
