Chinese cities make bespoke response to COVID-19 resurgences

BEIJING, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- Wang Yan, an empty-nester in her 70s in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province, dialed the local citizen hotline 12345 one day to seek help for solving one new problem: picking up groceries.

Due to a leg injury, Wang was unable to collect deliveries at the gate of her residential compound, which was under closed-off management due to COVID-19 flare-up.

Half an hour after Wang's call, a community worker contacted her and promised to arrange daily deliveries to her doorstep.

"My children are out of town, so I was a bit anxious at first. Now I feel much assured as I'm assigned a personal liaison," said Wang.

When Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province and a megacity of 21 million people, was hit by a COVID-19 resurgence in September, local authorities turned 12345 into a service desk for solving urgent difficulties facing residents during the outbreak.

Between Sept. 1 and 27, the hotline received about 1.58 million calls or online messages related to the epidemic, with 98.29 percent of the cases solved. A special team was also set up to expedite cases concerning senior citizens, children and pregnant women, officials said.

In virus-hit Chinese cities, more flexible and custom-made measures are being rolled out to protect both the work and lives of ordinary people, while preventing large-scale outbreaks.

The Chinese government has stressed coordinating epidemic prevention and control with economic and social development, and adopting targeted and science-based measures to minimize the epidemic impact on people's work and lives.

In an effort to ensure supplies of livelihood-related commodities, the Ministry of Transport has vowed to keep logistics vehicles, postal and express distribution outlets and service stations in normal operation during the epidemic.

In tourist city Jinghong, Yunnan Province, authorities offered free meals and are negotiating reduced hotel fees for stranded tourists in the Gaozhuang area after a COVID-19 flare-up prompted travel restrictions in early October.

The city has since Oct. 8 allowed non-local travelers to embark on return trips as long as they could provide negative test results.

Local communities are fully mobilized to care for epidemic-affected residents. In Chengdu, all neighborhoods are divided into 126,000 "micro-grids," served by 149,000 volunteers recruited from couriers, community workers and retirees.

"Each of such micro-grid personnel is responsible for contacting and helping an average of 12 households," said Zheng Zhi, an official with Chengdu's community management commission.

Wearing a red jacket, courier Wang Kehao is one of such micro-grid workers. His new job involves delivering epidemic-control materials and necessities, collecting epidemiological information and reporting residents' complaints to authorities.

"I'm impressed by the community staff who stick to their tasks despite bad weather. By working together, we'll get through this soon," said one resident in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province. After an infection was reported in a local residential complex, volunteers worked overnight to assemble a testing kiosk and facilitate grocery pick-up.

New technologies have facilitated communication in this process. In Chengdu, after big data had helped identify a flurry of complaints about grocery purchase, the municipal commerce bureau immediately organized dozens of retail companies to offer regular deliveries to closed-off neighborhoods.

A telephone AI was also employed to make over 60,000 calls, collecting information for epidemiological investigation and issuing reminders of tests and vaccination.

"The epidemiological tracking used to involve over a dozen staff members making phone calls all day long. It is now done by the robot in an hour, so our people have more time for other epidemic prevention work," said a doctor from the West China Hospital of Sichuan University.

The Chinese mainland on Wednesday reported 322 locally transmitted confirmed COVID-19 cases and 1,154 local asymptomatic carriers, compared with 374 and 1,386 on Tuesday.