Fight against virus more targeted and meticulous

How to balance the preventive measures for the control of the novel coronavirus and residents’ needs for daily necessities is proving to be a challenge for many local governments.

Arrangements need to be as meticulous as possible to ensure that residents have the daily life essentials they need.

In Shanghai, a new detailed and targeted management strategy is being implemented to help ease the supply disruptions that have left some residents desperate and frustrated.

The announcement on Monday that local communities will be placed under three different levels of control and prevention measures in accordance with their different epidemic situations indicates that a more detailed and targeted zone management is being implemented that will progressively ease the restrictions as the spread of the virus is controlled in communities and neighborhoods.

Lockdown is the first level that applies to those buildings or neighborhoods where confirmed cases continue to exist, and residents are required to stay at home until there are zero confirmed cases for two weeks. Closed-neighborhood management is the second level for those blocks which are in the vicinity of locked down buildings or neighborhoods. Residents in these controlled zones are required to stay within their neighborhoods. Those buildings or neighborhoods that are close to areas under the second-level management belong to the third precautionary level, and residents there are required to stay within the extended area, including neighboring streets or communities. Such a division of management levels will reduce the inconvenience caused to local residents by the control and prevention measures.

At the same time, central government departments have released documents prohibiting local governments from setting up acid nucleic testing points at expressway tollgates or adopting other measures that choke the smooth flow of goods along expressways.

Such efforts are already showing positive signs of achieving no transmission of the virus among communities in Shanghai, with the number of new confirmed infections and asymptomatic cases falling.

With the more precise zone management, more importance can also be given to ensure that vulnerable residents, such as the elderly and disabled, receive due care and attention.

With about 320,000 domestic cases reported in 30 provincial-level regions since March, it is more than necessary for local governments at all levels to sum up their experience and learn the lessons from the Omicron wave, so that the response to the pandemic can achieve the maximum effect in the shortest time and the negative effects on people’s lives and economic development can be kept to the minimum.

Editorial, China Daily