Province records more than 3,000 confirmed cases on Monday
Residents wait in the snow to get sampled for COVID-19 nucleic acid tests in Changchun, Jilin province, on Tuesday. (WANG QIANG / FOR CHINA DAILY)
Jilin province will make an all-out effort to contain its COVID-19 outbreak and clear cases outside quarantine areas within one week, top provincial officials said on Monday.
"We should improve work efficiency, including nucleic acid screening for all residents in the province, provide medical treatment for all positive patients, and centralized quarantine for all close contacts," Han Jun, governor of Jilin, told a conference on COVID-19 prevention and control on Monday night.
The province reported 3,076 new locally transmitted COVID-19 cases and 991 asymptomatic carriers on Monday. In the first nine hours of Tuesday, another 317 local cases and 27 asymptomatic carriers were logged.
By 9 am Tuesday, the province had also recorded 1,427 preliminary positive cases that are awaiting further examination and have been placed in closed-loop management, Zhang Li, deputy director of the Jilin Provincial Health Commission, said at a news conference on Tuesday morning.
"Five makeshift hospitals have been built, including one in Changchun (the provincial capital) and four in Jilin (city)," he said. "Seven medical institutions in the province have been vacated and 22,880 beds are available to receive infected patients."
Inspection teams will be set up in designated hospitals to provide special medical services for pregnant women and patients undergoing dialysis, radiotherapy or chemotherapy, he added.
"We are facing a complex and challenging situation of epidemic prevention and control as the epidemic is on the rise," Zhang said.
"Medical and epidemic prevention supplies for the whole province can only meet our needs for two to three days. We are making a concentrated effort to get support from all sides."
Workers build a makeshift hospital at a sports facility in Changchun on Tuesday. (WANG QIANG / FOR CHINA DAILY)
On Tuesday, the Red Cross Society in the province called on the whole of society to donate materials for epidemic prevention and control.
Protective equipment, disinfectants and medicine are needed, it said in a statement, adding that donations of money will be also accepted via designated channels.
Medical teams have been dispatched from around China to help curb the outbreak. According to the Changchun city government, 1,014 medical workers and over 25 metric tons of medical supplies had arrived in the provincial capital by Monday.
Key groups, including people under home quarantine, close contacts of positive cases, travelers who have returned from overseas and those under locked down management in controlled areas should test themselves daily using rapid antigen tests in the first five days of quarantine, according to a guideline released by the provincial leading group on COVID-19 prevention and control on Tuesday.
A new round of mass acid testing was conducted in Changchun and Jilin city on Tuesday.
Changchun-based automaker FAW Group suspended operations at its five finished automobile plants in the city on Sunday, Changchun's industry and information technology bureau said. The date of resumption will be determined based on the overall epidemic prevention and control situation and related government requirements, the bureau said.
Despite the strong resurgence of cases, government departments are making efforts to ensure the smooth progress of spring plowing, Zhang said.
"As of Monday, over 80 percent of funds for spring plowing production had been raised, and 73.8 percent of seeds, 50.7 percent of fertilizers and 24.4 percent of pesticides had been sent to farmers," he said.
Contact the writers at zhouhuiying@chinadaily.com.cn