Chengdu faces up to COVID-19 threat

Ma Zhao, a middle-aged woman in Chengdu, Sichuan province, waited among some 30 people at a hotel in the city on Wednesday to get a nucleic acid test.

"The line was long. But it took me only seconds to go through the procedure of having my (nucleic acid) sample collected. I will see the result early tomorrow morning," said the woman, who will attend a large-scale meeting in the city later this week.

"The conference organizer has financed the test. It's a must for all participants," she added.

Meanwhile, many residents of villages and locations related to the recently confirmed cases in Chengdu are getting tests offered free of charge by local health centers.

During this latest outbreak, Wen Fu, a taxi driver in Chengdu, said he had seen some changes in the city.

Streets in the city became less congested overnight as fewer vehicles and people went out after the first two COVID-19 cases were confirmed on Monday.

"There is only about half the normal traffic volume in the streets," said Wen, who has been a taxi driver for about 20 years.

In addition to the free tests for certain locations affected, there are 141 hospitals and organizations in Chengdu where individuals can pay to get nucleic acid tests, according to Fan Chuan, an information officer with the provincial health commission.

As of Wednesday, 739,000 nucleic acid test samples had been collected and 399,300 of those had been processed.

Six confirmed COVID-19 cases, plus one asymptomatic case, have been discovered in Chengdu this week.

Peng Qinghua, the provincial Party secretary and head of the leading group coping with the COVID-19 pandemic in Sichuan, chaired a meeting at the emergency command center of Chengdu epidemic prevention and control headquarters on Wednesday. He expressed his gratitude to all those who had worked hard day and night on the front line of prevention and control.

Peng said epidemic prevention and control has to be the most important task right now and concerted efforts have to be made to win this hard battle.

The city has introduced strict measures to contain the transmission of the virus, such as suspending school classes in certain areas.

Since Wednesday morning, all students at Minyang Foreign Language Experimental School have started having lessons online. One of the recent confirmed cases was of a worker in the school's canteen. The students all received negative test results on Monday.

In addition, some other kindergartens and schools have also switched to online lessons to reduce students' potential exposure to the virus.