Health authorities pledge to reduce inconvenience caused by COVID-19

BEIJING -- A spokesperson for China's National Health Commission (NHC) said Tuesday that authorities would try their best to reduce inconvenience caused by the COVID-19 epidemic to the people.

All localities are making solid efforts to prevent and control the epidemic, said Mi Feng, an NHC spokesperson. Mi said efforts should also be made to accurately identify risky areas based on nucleic acid tests and epidemiological investigation, and closed-off management for the sake of epidemic control should be imposed and lifted as quickly as possible to reduce inconvenience caused by the COVID-19 epidemic to the people, Mi said.

Mi also stressed science-based classification and treatment of COVID-19 patients, and proper treatment of and care for children, the elderly, and patients with underlying diseases.

Excessive control measures should be continuously rectified and the reasonable requests of the people should be responded to and addressed in a timely manner, he added.

COVID-19 outbreaks are now evolving rapidly, affecting large parts of the country, Cheng Youquan, a senior official of the national administration of disease prevention and control, said at the same press conference.

"Some localities face risks of resurgences on a considerable scale, and others are confronted with the most complicated and severe situations over the past three years," Cheng said.

He stressed the importance of upholding the ninth edition of the country's COVID-19 control protocols while fully implementing the 20 optimized response measures that were recently announced.

Local authorities have established special teams to curb excessive epidemic control measures, and the State Council's joint prevention and control mechanism to combat COVID-19 has actively processed petitions brought by the public and pushed relevant departments to settle problems, Cheng said.