Vice-Premier Sun calls for all-out efforts to curb pandemic in Shanghai

Vice-Premier Sun Chunlan urged resolute and swift moves to control the COVID-19 outbreak in Shanghai in the shortest time possible during an inspection visit to the city on Saturday.

Sun, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, underlined that Shanghai must implement the decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on pandemic prevention and control.

Shanghai must unswervingly adhere to the dynamic zero-COVID approach, and mobilize all possible testing capacity, medical personnel, and COVID-19 prevention supplies to support itself through the fight against the epidemic, she said.

Sun stressed that every resident in the municipality with a permanent population of 25 million must undergo nucleic acid tests in the citywide mass testing. She said it is necessary to expand makeshift hospitals and designated hospitals for COVID-19 treatment, and required the preparation of sufficient quarantine venues and swift actions in transferring and treating patients.

Also, epidemic control measures at communities must be further strengthened, while people's basic living and medical needs should be ensured, Sun said.

The Shanghai government announced that all the residents in the municipality will undergo antigen test on Sunday and the city will implement citywide mass nucleic acid testing on Monday.

Shanghai government announced on Sunday that the city recorded 8,226 new locally transmitted COVID-19 infections, including 438 confirmed cases, on Saturday.

Wu Qianyu, a primary inspector with the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission, said that Shanghai now is equipped with more than 10 hospitals, including fangcang, or makeshift hospitals, to receive and treat COVID-19 cases and infections.

"In the meantime, multiple large-scale public facilities have been constructed to realize that all the infections receive treatment at designated medical venues," she said, adding that at least 15 hospitals in the city have dispatched medical force to aid treatment at such sites.

For example, Shanghai Guanghua Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine received a call to be responsible for patient treatment at a fangcang with 502 beds renovated from a music park in Changning district.

It organized a 76-member medical team and started receiving patients on Saturday. Among them 11 aided Wuhan city, Hubei province, during its epidemic peak in 2020.

Also, the country dispatched medical contingents from provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui to aid Shanghai to epidemic control, nucleic acid testing, medical treatment, vaccine inoculation, and daily medical service at hospitals.

Contact the writer at zhouwenting@chinadaily.com.cn