At a meeting on Feb 17, Premier Li Keqiang urged further efforts on the medication and social security work in virus-hit Hubei province, especially the capital city, Wuhan. He stressed that orderly resumption of work and production should be implemented while continuing epidemic prevention and control.

Premier Li also is a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and head of the leading group on novel coronavirus prevention and control.

Wang Huning, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and deputy head of the group, also attended the meeting.

The meeting acknowledged the positive results the country has achieved in the fight against the virus. At the meeting, a working group of the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council made a report, revealing that the epidemic situation is improving.

The report pointed out that strict prevention and control work has effectively weakened the epidemic process and avoided a larger-scale outbreak. The epidemic center is still the city of Wuhan and Hubei province, and situations are changing in a complicated manner. The report affirmed epidemic prevention and control work should never diminish in the whole country, especially when nationwide work resumption is in progress.

It was decided at the meeting to continue to intensify the screening for potential suspected cases in Hubei province, in Wuhan in particular. Local hospitals should further increase the number of beds to effectively improve treatment rates and lower infection rates. Over 30,000 medics have been sent to Hubei province, and more will be sent according to future conditions.

Noting that the time required for a nucleic acid detection test has shrunk from two days to four to six hours, the leading group asked to apply the result to every patient in need to further enhance detection functions. According to those at the meeting, the diagnosis and treatment plan should be optimized by concentrating experts to offer enhanced treatment for critical patients and actively promoting clinically effective drugs to prevent more mild cases from deteriorating, and to increase the cure rate and lower the death rate.

More attention should be paid to protection and living security for medical staff, those at the meeting said, and urged arranging reasonable off-work rotations for them. Medical protective clothing and mask supplies should be increased, and the production and transportation of medical equipment for intensive treatment, such as non-invasive ventilators, high-flow oxygen machines and blood-gas analyzers should be speeded up, those at the meeting said.

It was mentioned at the meeting that targeted epidemic-prevention and orderly production resumption should be stepped up in accordance with the overall planning of epidemic-control and requirements of social and economic development.

The Hubei government should continue to engage epidemic-control along the outbound passages, to deter the epidemic from proliferating both inside and outside Hubei. Measures, featuring staggering-peak returning trips, already have helped avoid post-spring festival passenger flow peaks.

Departments concerned should implement stringent anti-epidemic methods on vehicles and stations, highlighting temperature taking, disinfection, and ventilation. Passengers should be seated dispersedly on trains, and they should wait for trains in the same way to curb the epidemic’s spread with public transport as the medium.

Plans to coordinate migrant workers’ returning trips to workplaces should be formulated and carried out in a targeted manner, with point-to-point direct chartered buses employed.

Schools should start staggering-peak spring semesters in accordance with real-time epidemic-prevention situations.

Local governments nationwide should navigate enterprises through orderly production resumption while strengthening epidemic-prevention. Related measures to disinfect offices, canteens, and staff dormitories should be rigidly taken, with gratuitous staff crowding avoided. And governments should help enterprises with raw material supplies and funds.

In addition, supplies of coal, electricity, petrol, and gas should be guaranteed. Regions without severe epidemic-prevention situations shouldn’t obstruct transportation in any way, which will affect production resumption.

Ding Xuexiang, Huang Kunming, Cai Qi, Wang Yi, Xiao Jie, and Zhao Kezhi, members of the leading team, also attended the meeting.