About 200 cities in China have adopted health QR codes to help control the novel coronavirus as people return to work.

A resident in Hangzhou shows her health QR code. (Photo/Xinhua)

Hangzhou in east China's Zhejiang province has taken the lead in launching a QR code system. The QR codes, produced with the mobile app Alipay, are based on users' health condition information. People are assigned codes marked green, yellow or red based on the information they provide.

The green code means that residents can go to public places or commute via public transportation, while people with yellow and red codes must be held under quarantine and report their health information every day before they are allowed to travel around the city.

As of Feb. 18, all cities in the provinces of Zhejiang, Sichuan and Hainan had adopted Alipay's health QR codes.

In addition, messaging app WeChat, owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent, introduced a health QR code tracking feature. So far, the feature has been implemented in the provinces of Guangdong, Yunnan and Guizhou, as well as municipalities including Shanghai, Tianjin and Chongqing.

The epidemic poses a test for digital government services and the quality of residents' digital way of life, said Pan Helin, an expert in economics at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, adding that the health QR code system is another testament to the Internet's role in facilitating the epidemic control and work resumption.