At a meeting of the leading group on novel coronavirus prevention and control on Feb 24, decisions were made to further strengthen epidemic prevention and treatment in Wuhan city, and take differentiated measures for different county-level regions to fight the epidemic.

Premier Li Keqiang, 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, presided over the meeting.

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.

Differentiated anti-virus measures should be taken for county-level regions, and orderly work and production resumption should be advanced, according to those at the meeting.

At the meeting, the central government team guiding the epidemic control work and Hubei provincial authorities made reports on epidemic control work in Wuhan city via a video call.

Having learned about what needs improvement at the frontline, those at the meeting called for related departments to strengthen support.

Wuhan city is required to continue to put in place screening and treatment measures, improve weak links in epidemic control in residential communities, and do the utmost to control infection sources and cut transmission routes to improve admission and cure rates and reduce infection and mortality rates, according to those at the meeting.

To that end, deploying urgently needed medical equipment, like artificial heart-lung machines, and professionals from across the country to Wuhan.

Joint experts teams should be assigned to different areas and take targeted efforts to treat severe and critically ill patients, and early treatment should be taken to prevent patients with mild symptoms from deteriorating into critical condition, it was stressed.

As required, efforts should be taken to ensure epidemic information is released in an open, transparent, timely, and accurate way, and the voices of the public should be heard for timely policy adjustment.

The joint prevention and control mechanism of the State Council should make constant efforts to ensure the needs of medical materials for epidemic prevention and control in Hubei province, especially Wuhan, be met, and increase the allocation of daily necessities.

Hubei province and Wuhan city must maintain smooth logistics and protect the lives of the people by ensuring the delivery of daily necessities in communities.

According to those at the meeting, the emergency response level has been adjusted in some provinces based on local situations since the guideline on targeted and scientific prevention of COVID-19.

In the next step, epidemic monitoring and accurate prevention should be enhanced in all provincial-level regions with differentiated control measures in counties for better epidemic prevention and social and economic development.

Meanwhile, protection guidelines for the elderly, pregnant women, students and other key groups should be well implemented, with better prevention measures in place for public places, medical institutions, and industrial and construction enterprises to prevent infection while resuming production.

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

Sun Chunlan spoke at the meeting via video connection.