Guangzhou spares no effort in blocking spread of COVID-19

Medical workers would go all out to rescue the critical and severe ill patients with precision medicines while sparing no effort to block the spread of COVID-19 pandemic in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, a senior health official said on Thursday.

Zhang Yi, deputy director and spokeswoman of the Guangzhou Health Commission said at a news conference on Thursday that an expert consultation system has been set up in accordance with the patients' health condition and treat them with both traditional Chinese and western medicines.

"Meanwhile, hospitals have implemented "one case, one treatment" for special cases with severe basic diseases and pregnant women."

The city reported its first critical patient and first severe patient on Wednesday since the outbreak started in late October.

The critical patient is an 82-years-old woman, with coronary heart disease, thoracic malformation, chronic bronchitis, long-term bedridden, while the severe one is a 62-years-old man who has severe hypertension, coronary heart disease and sequela of cerebral infarction.

Both are now in stable conditions after treatment in a designated hospital, she said.

Wang Baosen, deputy director and spokesman of Guangzhou Bureau of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, said his bureau has accelerated construction of makeshift hospitals and quarantine venues in the previous weeks.

"The city government has planned to build a total of 114,392 beds in makeshift hospitals, and 39,164 beds had been put into use as of Thursday noon," he said.

And 28,235 out of 132,015 beds in the city's quarantines venues have also been put into use, as of Thursday noon, Wang added.

Guangzhou reported a total of 275 local transmitted confirmed cases, and 8,486 asymptomatic carriers on Wednesday.

Of them, 16 were detected in community level.

Haizhu, the main battlefield in the city's fight against COVID-19, reported a total of 8,582 infections on Wednesday.

And 92.6 percent of the infections were detected in Haizhu's Fengyang, Nanzhou and Huazhou sub-districts, she said.

Haizhu, where the exhibition halls of China Import and Export Fair are located, is a major international exhibition and convention center in the southern Chinese region and a densely populated area in Guangzhou.

Meanwhile Kuangquan sub-district in Yuexiu district has also reported cluster infections on Wednesday.

Zhang Yongliang, deputy head of Haizhu district, said his district has extended its strengthened prevention and control measures against the novel coronavirus in part of the district when a large number of infections continued to be detected in the district's high-risk areas and controlled zones on Wednesday.

Relevant departments in Haizhu will continue to expand nucleic acid testing and screening to help seek the COVID-19 patients and asymptomatic carriers to block the spread of the virus in local community levels while going all out to ensure supplies of cereal, oil, meats, vegetables and related materials in the districts controlled zones, he said.

Zhang Zhoubin, Party secretary of the Guangzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said the real-time transmission index — a number that determines how many people can be infected by another person — in Haizhu had been reduced to 1.5 by Thursday from 2.2 recorded a week ago and it has been fluctuating between 1.4 and 1.5 in the last four days.

"That indicates the prevention and control measures taken in the past week are effective in curbing the spread of the virus in Haizhu," he said.

"The still growing number of cases detected in Haizhu reflects the reality that Haizhu has a large number of infected people. And that is why the real-time transmission index in Haizhu has dropped, but many infections are still detected in the district," he added.