Beijing takes measures to intensify epidemic prevention

By Zhu Jingruo and Wang Haonan from People’s Daily

 

Beijing has rolled out various measures to build a solid line of defense in the battle against the COVID-19 epidemic by plugging the loopholes in epidemic response and raising the standards of epidemic control.

 

The capital city had reported 205 confirmed cases as of June 19. It has raced against the clock and made all-out efforts to contain the epidemic in a proactive manner since the first new local case was reported on June 11.

 

So far, Beijing has strengthened inspection and screening to ensure that no case is left off, focusing on the service sector with high population mobility and medical institutions.

 

Beijing has done blanket tracking on cases, conducted epidemiological investigations of confirmed cases and enhanced epidemic prevention and control of hospitals.

 

A nurse from the emergency department of Peking University International Hospital (PUIH) was diagnosed with the coronavirus on June 19, drawing public attention.

 

At a press conference held on the next day, Beijing introduced the details of the case and PUIH’s prevention and control measures, as well as the city’s control of hospital-acquired infections, responding to public concerns.

 

The capital has sent 11 medical groups and 14 experts to guide and supervise fever clinics of 20 medical institutions with a relatively higher numbers of confirmed cases. They summoned heads of eight hospitals, five districts and two administrative units for face-to-face meetings regarding the problems discovered. Besides, they also requested medical institutions to take serious measures to identify problems according to the city’s 16 precautions against hospital-acquired infections, and conquer such problems with quick actions, asking medical institutions and local governments to shoulder their responsibility.

 

The city has strengthened supervision and screening in key industries with high population mobility, mainly focusing on the service sector, and immediately rectified problems identified.

 

Beijing has launched comprehensive monitoring and law enforcement on epidemic control in public places of massive gathering, such as medical institutions, shopping malls, supermarkets, hotels, and bus stations, as well as centralized and secondary drinking water suppliers.

 

A total of 479 units and places failed to meet standards and were requested to rectify to close loopholes and build a solid line of defense.

 

Focusing on key groups of people, key areas and key sectors, nucleic acid tests will first be conducted for high-risk groups related to affected markets, including Xinfadi, and their neighboring communities, and then gradually extended to people working in catering businesses, shopping malls, supermarkets and bazaars, residents in the 36 medium- and high-risk areas, and those working in parcel and food delivery.

 

A total of 2,083 testing stations are operating at 474 testing sites set up at the city and district levels, where 7,472 medical workers, seconded from 59 Tier-Two and Tier-Three medical institutions, 28 third-party testing institutions and 20 disease control and prevention centers, are working in shifts to take samples at full capacity.

 

Nearly 2.3 million people in Beijing had been sampled for nucleic acid tests as of 6 a.m., June 20. Reports confirmed that the number of daily samplings in the city has increased to around 500,000 from 8,000 a week ago, and the testing capacity has also been improved significantly.