Coronavirus pandemic: China
Top group urges improved testing, transparency
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A woman having her temperature checked in the border city of Suifenhe in China's north-eastern Heilongjiang province.
PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A region under pressure
BEIJING • A meeting presided over by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has called for quicker steps to improve coronavirus testing methods and to expand their usage so that containment efforts can be more targeted and businesses can reopen in China.
The leading group of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, on responding to the virus outbreak, on Wednesday said China must strengthen its testing capacities that allow for large-scale nucleic acid and antibody tests, before containment efforts can be normalised.
The country must speed up making testing equipment that can produce more accurate results in an efficient manner, and distribute it to areas where it is most needed, such as hospitals and ports, the group said.
The goal is to ensure that all key groups can receive the tests, and that testing coverage is expanded so that individuals can obtain tests voluntarily.
The group called for measures to enable the test results to be mutually recognised between different areas so that more businesses can resume operations at full capacity. And the local authorities must make sound arrangements over the travel peak for the upcoming Labour Day holiday, a five-day break starting on May 1.
With new clusters and cases of cross infection within hospitals in some areas, the group also ordered related departments to help the local authorities find out their causes and make them public.
The movement of confirmed, suspected and asymptomatic cases and their close contacts must be tracked so that containment steps can be taken. The group also warned against the concealment of cases, saying information must be released in a transparent manner.
CHINA DAILY/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
