COVID-19 responses attest to China's strength, resilience

A medical worker administers a dose of COVID-19 vaccine to a senior resident in Hufeng Village of Wenchang, south China's Hainan Province, Dec. 22, 2022. (Xinhua/Pu Xiaoxu)

* Putting people first and giving top priority to people's lives has been the distinctive feature of China's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

* The pandemic fight in one of the world's most populous nations has been steered and guided by steadfast leadership.

* A brief look at the three-year anti-virus experience reveals the country's strength and resilience and cements faith in the future.

BEIJING, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- With the New Year approaching, shopping centers and cinemas in Beijing are welcoming a steady increase in shopper foot traffic.

Across the country, production lines of China's vast network of factories are humming, allowing no disruption to the supply chains. Many Chinese provinces and cities have sent trade delegations overseas to fortify ties with their partners and peers and explore new opportunities.

The regained vitality, which came after the country optimized epidemic response, reflects the new achievements in the country's consistent efforts to effectively coordinate epidemic prevention and control with economic and social development.

A worker checks the quality of products at a factory of a bicycle and baby stroller manufacturer in Pingxiang County, north China's Hebei Province, Dec. 27, 2022. (Xinhua/Mu Yu)

With the mutation of the virus, the change of the epidemic situation, the popularization of vaccination and the accumulation of experience in prevention and control, China's epidemic prevention and control has entered a new stage. Shifting from infection prevention to medical treatment, China is making efforts to ensure a smooth, orderly transition of its measures.

A brief look at the three-year anti-virus experience reveals the country's strength and resilience and cements faith in the future.

PUTTING LIVES FIRST

Putting people first and giving top priority to people's lives has been the distinctive feature of China's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since the onset of the virus, the Chinese government has effectively safeguarded the lives and health of the people during the most harmful period of the virus. The priority on protecting lives has been upheld throughout the country's fight against the virus.

To contain the epidemic in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, in early 2020, more than 40,000 medics rushed to aid as part of the largest mobilization of medical resources since the founding of New China in 1949. Thanks to the resolute efforts of the medical personnel, over 3,000 COVID patients aged 80 and above were cured.

China has tackled more than 100 cluster infections since 2020, fighting different variants of the virus, including the Delta and Omicron strains, and has never wavered from its principle of putting people's lives and health above everything else.

This aerial photo taken on Jan. 24, 2020, shows the construction site of Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province. (Xinhua/Xiao Yijiu)

Through arduous efforts, China has kept its severe COVID-19 cases and death rates among the lowest in the world. The average life expectancy of the Chinese has continued to rise amid the pandemic, from 77.93 years in 2020 to 78.2 years in 2021.

As the anti-virus focus shifts to treating cases, China has taken a combination of measures to boost access to medical treatment and drugs, improve health services for the elderly and other key groups, accelerate COVID-19 vaccination, and strengthen epidemic prevention and control in rural areas.

STEADFAST LEADERSHIP

The pandemic fight in one of the world's most populous nations has been steered and guided by steadfast leadership. In the face of the sudden and severe epidemic in 2020, the central Party leadership adopted extraordinary measures to tackle an "extraordinary emergency" and immediately exercised centralized, unified leadership.

China set up a central leading group for coordinating the epidemic response, sent a central guidance team to Hubei, and established an interdepartmental task force under the State Council.

The leadership of the Communist Party of China and the advantages of China's socialist system have been further demonstrated, showing its consistent efficacy in resolving crises and coping with changes.

China's strength, which features the extraordinary ability to organize, mobilize, coordinate, and implement, allows it to tackle magnanimous undertakings and challenging tasks such as dealing with the pandemic. China's epidemic prevention strategy has been widely supported by and implemented with the dedicated work of the public, including millions of community workers, doctors, nurses, and construction workers who built some treatment facilities in almost one day.

SCIENTIFIC AND TARGETED MEASURES

Science and technology are the most powerful weapons in humanity's battle against diseases.

China has issued nine editions of prevention and control plans and diagnosis and treatment plans to guide the fight against COVID-19. Anti-virus decision-making and efforts are science-based and correspond to changing situations.

Targeted measures have been adopted to contain the spread of the virus while minimizing its impact on social life. In the recent optimization of the epidemic responses, scientific and targeted measures have also been stressed, with extra attention and aid given to key and vulnerable groups.

ADJUSTING STRATEGIES BASED ON EVOLVING SITUATION

In the face of the pandemic, China's reactions have been prompt and decisive. The timely lockdown of Wuhan was instrumental in keeping the virus at bay. Swift tracing, testing, and quarantine efforts helped keep the infection rate low and allowed no wayward onslaught of damaging variants. As the pandemic enters a new stage, China has taken the initiative to optimize prevention and control measures to ensure that they are more scientific, precise, and effective.

In the past three years, China has raced against time to roll out vaccines, rapid test kits, and medication and expanded the capacity of fever clinics. China has developed effective COVID-19 diagnosis and treatment expertise and medicines and kept improving its capacities in terms of medical treatment, pathogen detection, and epidemiological investigation. To date, more than 90 percent of its population has been vaccinated.

As the focus shifts from infection control to prevention and treatment of severe cases, China is accelerating the shots given to people aged over 60, numbering around 267 million.

Faced with the weakened pathogenicity, China has renamed the Chinese term for COVID-19 from "novel coronavirus pneumonia" to "novel coronavirus infection." It also announced that it will manage COVID-19 with measures against Class B infectious diseases, instead of Class A infectious diseases, updating its epidemic response policies.

STRIKING A BALANCE

In the past three years, China has blazed a righteous path of coordinating epidemic prevention and control and economic and social development in a highly efficient way.

Despite global headwinds in 2020, China was the first major economy across the globe that registered growth. The average annual growth rate for 2020 and 2021 reached 5.1 percent. The country has also successfully eradicated absolute poverty, a hard-won feat considering the disruptions caused by the pandemic. In 2022, the Chinese economy is continuing to pursue recovery.

Children skate at a business center in Beijing, capital of China, Dec. 24, 2022. (Xinhua/Ju Huanzong)

China's GDP increased by 3 percent year on year in the first three quarters of this year. On the basis of 2.5-percent year-on-year growth in the first half of the year, it continued to consolidate its upward trend. As various policies are carried out, the economic prospects for the next year are sound.

SOLIDARITY, NEVER-YIELDING SPIRIT

The nation's stringent anti-virus measures in the past three years have bought time for readiness. With solidarity and resilience, the Chinese people have written a memorable chapter in the global pandemic fight.

From medical workers to the people's army, from scientific researchers to community workers, from seniors to youths, numerous people fulfilled their missions even risking their own lives and protected humanity with sincere love. They pooled their drops of strength into tremendous power and built an iron wall to safeguard lives, illustrating the great spirit of fighting against the pandemic.

As the COVID-19 policy is optimized, mutual help and a sharing spirit also once again highlighted the Chinese collective and community culture and the grassroots wisdom in dealing with challenges arising from the current epidemic control.

A COMMUNITY OF HEALTH FOR HUMANITY

Facing the global epidemic, China launched the largest global emergency humanitarian operation since the founding of New China, making contributions to global public health endeavors.

This photo taken on March 28, 2022 shows packages of China-donated Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine at the Phnom Penh International Airport in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. (Photo by Ly Lay/Xinhua)

China has not only provided and exported anti-epidemic products to more than 200 countries and regions but also unreservedly aided over 120 countries and international organizations with 2.2 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines.

It has sent 38 medical expert teams to 34 countries and supported more than 180 countries and international organizations in fighting the virus with its treatment protocols and containment strategies.

Chinese aid has helped save thousands of lives around the world and honored its commitment to building a community with a shared future for humanity.