Mayor of Lhasa apologizes for COVID-19 response

Dradul, executive deputy mayor of Lhasa, the capital city of the Tibet autonomous region, apologized to the public for the city not performing well in its work regarding the COVID-19 prevention and controls in a news briefing on Saturday.

During the briefing, Dradul acknowledged the deficiencies of the government's work in the preparation, handling, response and implementation regarding its COVID-19 prevention measures and policies.

"For example, how the inadequate nucleic acid testing capabilities at the early stages of the outbreak led to an inadequate follow-up of nucleic acid screening in some communities, and the feedback of testing results was delayed, and the inaccurate of some testing results," said Dradul.

Dradul also said many residents, who share public toilets and the same drinking water points from large compounds in Lhasa, were transferred to places favourable for epidemic prevention and control, and to avoid possible cross-infection.

"Due to emergency, the residents were not given the explanation of the transferring in advance," added Dradul.

The insufficiencies also include the poor management of some makeshift hospitals, as these temporary hospitals were set up immediately to treat the patients. Meanwhile, some of the temporary hospitals were unqualified in logistic support, they had problems such as untimely cleaning and waste disposal.

"On behalf of the city's government, I would like to express my deep apologies to all the people of the city and those who got stranded in Lhasa due to the pandemic," said Dradul, adding that the city's government will directly face all challenges, and improve the deficiencies to further optimize its epidemic prevention and control measures.

Lhasa reported 11 locally confirmed COVID-19 cases and 178 asymptomatic carriers on Sunday, all detected at quarantine sites, according to a statement released by the office of Lhasa's leading group for fighting COVID-19 on Monday.