Guangzhou's virus prevention measures to bear fruit, official says

Guangzhou will be able to see clear results in the fight against the coronavirus in two weeks, when measures of targeted prevention and control have proven effective, a senior official from the city said on Wednesday.

Yang Zhicong, director of the Guangzhou Center for Disease Prevention and Control, said the outbreak of COVID-19 in Guangzhou is still controllable, although confirmed cases and asymptomatic carriers continued to be detected in previous days.

He urged locals to actively cooperate with relevant departments in preventing and controlling the spread of the coronavirus in the city.

Most of the patients and asymptomatic carriers have been found to contract the virus through close contacts with confirmed cases and family in the past weeks, he said.

"And if the measures of targeted prevention and control can be well implemented in the city, I believe we will be able to achieve significant results in 14 days," Yang told local media.

Mass screening through nucleic acid tests for all residents in the target districts and areas in the southern metropolis in the previous days has managed to block the chain of the infection in the past weeks, he said.

To prevent and control the spread of the coronavirus, two subdistricts of Baihedong and Zhongnan — all in the city's Liwan district — have been classified as high-risk areas, as the city reported seven new locally-transmitted COVID-19 cases and five local asymptomatic carriers on Tuesday.